


The Dark Place

by toggledog



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Bisexual Matt Murdock, Blood and Violence, Blow Jobs, Borderline Personality Disorder, Christian Hypocrisy, Daredevil (TV) Spoilers, Denial of Feelings, Falling In Love, Gang Rape, M/M, Masturbation, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Mutual Masturbation, Past Sexual Abuse, Prison, Rape Fantasy, Rape Recovery, Rough Sex, Sexual Coercion, Sexual Harassment, Sexual Tension, Sexual Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-09 11:47:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 46,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16449368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toggledog/pseuds/toggledog
Summary: *SPOILERS FOR DAREDEVIL SEASON  3*Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter hasn't transformed into the arch villain Bullseye yet.Recovering from spinal surgery in prison, Dex's mental state is already unhinged and growing worse.He reluctantly joins a prison gang for protection while he heals. His 'protectors' take advantage of his current vulnerability to sexually extort and assault him. When he has full control of his bodily functions once more, he vows to murder every one of his attackers, even if it means his sentence being upgraded to death row.Matt and Foggy decide to represent him, with their own agenda involving keeping tabs on Wilson Fisk. Seeing the lawyer side of Matt fighting for someone as cruel as himself, Dex develops a new obsession.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ok firstly DD season 3 was the best yet. Matt and Wilson Fisk continue to amaze.  
> The origin story of Bullseye... oh boy! He managed to be chilling yet had moments of sympathy, despite his terrible actions.  
> This is a very dark continuation of his story.  
> This is going to end up Daredevil/Bullseye slash but due to their characters, will be a pretty messed up 'relationship'.  
> Warning in this chapter for a brutal gang rape.  
> Also, the gang Dex joins are complete religious hypocrites and there are a few scenes of violence involving a bible.

On his third day of convalescence Nadeem returned to him. If Dex were a religious man, he would attribute significance to the arrival, substituting a wish for a weapon in his hand with a crucifix. However, as the agent stepped into the infirmary room, of which he was the sole occupant, Dex uptilted his lips and, with effort, lifted his arm in a brief wave. Nadeem strolled to the end of his bed and looked down at him, his expression solemn.

“Glad you came back.”

 _“I’m not back,”_ Nadeem’s voice was so smooth; honeyed tones. How, in the years of their acquaintance, had Dex never noticed? _“This isn’t real. I’m not real. How can I be?”_

Dex flicked his eyes to the door, alert to one of the nurses coming in for one of their four hourly observations. For now, the hall outside was empty, the hush of a distant vacuum the only sound. If Matt Murdock was present, he would discern more, Dex was certain, would pinpoint the janitor’s elevated heartrate, the tread of the nurses’ feet three rooms down.

No, Dex didn’t want his brain to venture into that direction. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. Daredevil’s decision, in their final fight, had spared Wilson Fisk’s life, and yet, conversely, protected Dex from assured death at Fisk’s hands.

“Nadeem I…I don’t know what to say…” He glanced down at his broad strong hands, so precise when targeting.

As a sniper in the army and FBI, death had been cool, calculated. Rational. As Nadeem’s had been. Yet, Nadeem had been the only one to accept his demise, to understand the greater purpose.

“You took out Fisk,” Dex whispered, his voice shaking. “You recognised his betrayal long before I ever could.”

Nadeem continued to gaze at him with melancholy brown irises _. “Not before my family was targeted, before I destroyed their lives.”_

“Fisk wasn’t the man I should have been looking up to. You were a good man. Your death proved that. And I contributed in bringing down Fisk by aiding you in your sacrifice….” Dex trailed off, confusion piquing his convoluted thoughts.

Nadeem continued to stare at him, not speaking. But then, what could his delusion say, to raise him from the murky depths of his self-imposed mental confinement?

“I know you’re not real but please… Please don’t leave me…” Dex pleaded.

There was no stability in this place, no North Star to be found. He didn’t even have function of his legs, was told if he worked hard at his rehabilitation he still only had a twenty percent chance of gaining full control again. If Fisk wanted to, he could get him in here whenever he pleased. Dex was conflicted whether to welcome the respite from his anguish, in the form of the soothing black slumber of death, or to strain against his coming demise, to fight to his last breath any who attacked him.

Perhaps the fact that he still breathed was true proof Fisk wanted nothing of him, had been informed of Dex’s current crippled state and decided this was punishment enough for his betrayal.

_“I can’t be your North Star. Even if I was alive, you’d turn on me too. You always do.”_

“No, I don’t believe that. People can change. _I_ can change. I just need a chance.” The hallucination that was Nadeem was solid, as though the dead FBI agent had reversed the decomposition process, broken out of his coffin and burial pit, cleaned and changed into a well pressed suit.

_“I wasn’t a good person. I betrayed my wife. My son.”_

The door opened and the nurse came in, stiff back and lack of eye contact proving her disgust of Dex. She took his observations in minimal time, while Nadeem watched.

 _“She hates you. You can’t blame her, can you?”_ Nadeem asked, as she hurried out of the room, as fast as her tiny legs could take her. _“You are a psychopathic murderer.”_

“I was manipulated.”

A bright grin crossed Nadeem’s handsome visage, as he shook his head.

_“No, Dex. You had the choice. As I did. You killed a priest in a church. Innocent journalists and civilians. If that’s not evil, I don’t know what is-“_

“I am not evil!” Dex picked up the lunch tray from beside his bed and chucked it at the phantom figure. It whirled straight through him and lodged into the wall opposite. “I just… I need help…” Dex placed his head in his hands, rubbing his light brown hair. “I need guidance.”

*

“One more, that’s it,” the curly haired man said.

As he lifted his right knee, both of Dex’s legs trembled, sweat dripping down his forehead and stinging his eyes. His gastrocnemius muscle flamed, as though a red-hot poker had been shoved straight through the flesh and muscle, splintering the bone. He cried out and placed the foot down.

“There you go, now-“

The muscles in Dex’s feet loosened and he fell to the floor, landing on his hip, the spiralling sting up his side now contending with the agony of his legs.

“No! No no no no no!” Dex screamed, tearing at his hair.

“It’s okay,” the man reached down to grab under his arm. “You did well today.”

“I need to keep going.”

“I think that’s enough-“

Dex gripped his physiotherapist’s bicep, attempting to pull himself back up. “I can do it!”

“I don’t want you to overexert yourself.”

“I need to walk again! Please!” He begged, holding the man’s calm blue irises with his own hazel.

“And you will. But if you overdo it, it will delay your healing. You did well, believe me. I’ll see you again tomorrow,” the physiotherapist placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “In fact, when you are fully healed, you will be stronger than anyone here. That is the genius of Doctor Oyama. You will improve, Ben, guaranteed. But, with all bodily healing, it can’t happen straight away. The body doesn’t work that way.”

Ben. The physiotherapist already had a pet name for him.

_This is a nice man. A gentle man. Be good to this one, Dex._

He noted the gold ring on his left hand, wondered about the wife or husband, whether he had any children.

“I’ll come back tomorrow,” Dex promised. “You’re right. I don’t want to overdo it.”

*

The catcalling started as soon as he entered the walkway lined with cells. Lengthening his strengthening tensile spine, Dex forced his lips upwards into a smirk.

“I’ll be coming for you killer!”

“Yeah come in here pretty boy, I’ll show you a good time.”

Dex continued to push his wheelchair, the prison officer behind not bothering to help. Fair enough. Dex could understand his reasoning. He had, after all, slaughtered at least half a dozen people under Wilson Fisk’s orders before turning evidence against the kingpin. Hence, he was a murderer as well as a snitch.

No matter. When he was strong enough, the ones who had catcalled him would find themselves at the brutal end of a lethal throw.

“Fletcher. Your roomie has arrived!” The officer shouted, as they reached cell 245. Beyond the grey metal bars, Dex noted a bunk bed to the left, and a metal sink, toilet and small bookshelf bearing a dozen books to the right. The obese bald man bearing flushed red skin tone and an overly large nose sat on the bottom cot. If they were handing out awards for the most grotesque looking prisoner, this one would be gold standard, Dex thought, repressing another smirk.

Fletcher placed the book he had been reading on the covers and Dex caught the word ‘Bible’ in gold lettering.

“Cell two-four-five open,” the officer stated into his radio com and the door buzzed open.

Dex wheeled himself inside and the door buzzed closed, imprisoning him with his new cellmate.

The other prisoner stood and reached out his hand.

“Pierce Fletcher, Fletch. I know who you are.”

The hand wavered in the air a moment before dropping. Dex tilted his head, observing this Fletch. Uniform neatly pressed and clean. No facial hair. The man’s smile appeared genuine enough, reflecting in his blue eyes.

“I’ll be straight. You need my protection. I have a fair amount of influence here in the prison.”

“I don’t need anyone’s protection,” Dex wheeled himself forward, forcing Fletch to step aside. “Clearly, I’m going to need the bottom bunk.” 

“Fisk will be after you. As well as other prisoners,” Fletch skirted around him and picked up the bible from the bed. “It’s not a coincidence I asked to swap and be your cellmate.”

 _“Protection in exchange for what?”_ Nadeem asked, sitting on the mattress, as Dex used his arms to push himself out of the wheelchair and manoeuvred over beside him.

“You go anywhere near me and I will break your face,” Dex warned.

Fletch took a step back and raised his arms palm up, in a supplicating gesture.

“The offer is there, if you need it.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Evidentially.”

Dex expected Fletch to speak more, but instead the older man scurried up the bunk bars with the uncommon grace Fisk had possessed and lay down on the top bunk.

He wasn’t bothered the rest of the night, not even by Nadeem.

Dex wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed.

*

The next morning, by the time his cellmate had risen, Dex had already made his bed, brushed his teeth and dressed. Fletch stumbled down the bunk ladder, mumbling as he made his way over to the toilet. Dex sat on the edge of his own bed, going through in his mind the procedure for the following day. As his beloved childhood therapist had stated, he needed precise structure, to avoid giving in to the chaos dictated by his on-edge personality.

0900 Breakfast.

10.30 Rehabilitation

1300 Lunch

1400 Free time- library- research into current case

1600 Work in the prison laundry

 1800 Dinner

1900 Locked down in cell. Study notes taken in library/read.

2230 Lights out.

He would be able to keep to this structure, if he wasn’t concerned with Wilson Fisk sending a man to shank him. Dex was confident in his ability to defend himself. However, this was difficult, with the lower half of his body still healing from the extravagant operation and unable to function at his needed capacity. His physiotherapist stated the day before he was healing at a substantive rate.

However, it was not happening swift enough for him.

Swallowing, he watched his cell mate yawn, flush the toilet and wash his hands.

“You say you can protect me? How?” Dex asked.

Fletch spun around to face him, brows raised.

“I have… influence here due to certain operations that are guided by me.”

“Operations?” Dex raised his own left eyebrow.

“I don’t delve into drugs. But alcohol. Alcohol is God’s favourite drink, wouldn’t you say? After all, it is the tenant of the Catholic religion. Blood of Christ, body of Christ.”

Dex bit his inner lip to avoid frowning, not the least interested in this man’s religious rhetoric.

“More than a few of the officers are happy to look the other way, particularly if their palms are greased. And the prisoners. Well, who wouldn’t want the chance of a tipple of scotch to celebrate their son’s high school graduation?” Fletch winked.

“How does this help me?”

“I’m respected. People don’t mess with me.”

 _“Something’s not right,”_ Nadeem’s voice sounded behind him. _“He wouldn’t be so feared just because he operates a secret alcohol smuggling operation.”_

_What choice do I have? At this point, I need the protection, until I have full control of my bodily functions again._

“If I agree to your protection, what do you ask for in return?”

When Fletch knelt before him, Dex flinched back, the muscles in his torso and arms clenching.

“Go to church with us. Be right with God. Beg God’s forgiveness.”

Dex once again swallowed and nodded. He doubted God would accept those terms, nor would he wish for God’s forgiveness. But he would consent to singing a few hymns and saying a few ‘Hail Marys’, in exchange for protection, for the time being.

*

Watching the way Fletch operated, over the next two days, it was clear he wasn’t lying in regards to his influence over the others. The other inmates kept a respectful distance from him. If they did talk, it was with the utmost respect, calling him ‘Sir’. Not even Wilson Fisk, at the height of his power, was afforded such niceties.

In regards to his own protection, Dex slotted into Fletch’s main group of six other men even smoother than those hectic first few months at the FBI. When he first came into the breakfast hall, Fletch laid a hand on his shoulder before the table of identical long haired, muscular ruffians and said “This here is Dex. Make him welcome.”

The men clamoured forward to shake his hand and eagerly welcomed him into the fold. They had been keen to know him; not his crimes or his work with Fisk but him.

Benjamin Poindexter. A human being, who had the right to exist, to be a part of the group, despite his crimes, despite his fears that he would be shunned, that he would continue on with the void of the exile that continued to dominate his life.

By the end of the first day, when he had settled down to a game of cards with Fletch, an odd emotion bubbled in his stomach.

Serenity.

Acceptance of his new reality.

Perhaps he had found the North Star with this group of men. Could it be even possible?

No, he told himself not to be too eager too soon. He had only been acquainted with them for one day.

Fletch cheated at poker, a sin for which Dex would have ordinarily been furious to be a part of. However, he was in such a calm mood, he let it slide. When Fletch queried his famed throwing ability, Dex concurred, grabbing one of the playing cards and spinning it towards the wall so fast it lodged into the cell's brickwork.

“How is that even possible?” Fletch said, eyes wide, as Dex allowed a wide smile to grace his lips.

*

On day three, after arriving late to his physiotherapy session, as a result of attending church, Dex wheeled into the room with his heart fluttering, his shirt drenched with sweat.

“I’m so sorry! I was in church and-“

“No matter. You’re here now,” his physiotherapist said with a warm smile that seeped into Dex’s panicked insides, soothing the frigid muscles. “I must say, I’m impressed. I’ve never seen anyone improve as much as you have in the past two days.”

Dex suspected his new friends may be the answer.

“ _These are not your friends_ ,” Nadeem materialised beside the physiotherapist. _“They’ll announce their true intentions soon.”_

*

Nadeem or his delusion or his own psyche or whatever the hell the metaphysical sprite was revealed itself to be true the following night.

The morning and afternoon had corresponded with the efficient and stable nature of the three days past, of breakfast with his new friends, church, physiotherapy in which he was once again informed of his improvement, free time in the yard spent listening to his friends talk, throw ball, and organise deals with the alcohol operation, dinner and then lock down.

Dex noticed one aberrant feature, that morning. The playing cards were missing. Fletch informed him he had loaned them to a friend. Upon later introspection Dex surmised Fletch deliberately took away items Dex could use against him, in case of a physical interaction.

Rain pattered on the window and Dex rolled his wheelchair over to stare out at the grey overcast sky. Where was Wilson Fisk in that moment? Did the kingpin’s thoughts ever stray towards himself? Did he believe his own words about Benjamin being as a son to him, was it all lies, to mould him to his strategies?

“Dex?”

Bowing his head, Dex turned from the window and jolted as Fletch stood directly before him, so close their legs almost touched. The hairs on his arms rose.

“What do you-?”

He expected the man to step back, give him space, instead, he knelt down so they were at eye level.

“You are a very handsome man,” Fletch said, laying a hand on his thigh.

Dex clamped down on a frustrated growl that yearned to escape out of his throat. Why didn’t he see this one coming? His brain raced through the past few days, picking out signs of this man’s true intentions; brief glances that lingered, the occasional touch on the back of his neck, or arm. He was no stranger to intimacy with men. Indeed, Dex found intimacy with other men far more rewarding than with women. With men, he could focus on the act, without the risk of emotional involvement.

In his mind, he’d separated the two genders. Men were for the sating of physical needs. Women for the sating of emotional needs.

However, he harboured no attraction to Fletch whatsoever. He may have gone down on Wilson Fisk, if asked, would have gladly fucked a willing Matt Murdock through a wall. But the hand that now lay on his thigh seeped dirt through his prison slacks, dissolving through to grime the muscle fibers underneath.

No, he couldn’t allow this man to touch him.

However, he’d have to be careful with the way he negotiated this, as he still needed this man’s protection.

 _“Be calm,”_ Nadeem advised. _“You can’t afford to lose it now.”_

“I’m sorry,” Dex said. “I’m not attracted to you.”

Fletch laughed, moving his hand up to fondle his groin.

Dex froze, his heart slamming hard against his chest wall. A memory crept around the edge of his cognition, determined to break through.

Only no no he didn’t want it.

Whatever the memory was, it would kill him. He would be trapped in a frigid dark place alone, for eternity.

“ _No one needs to know_ ,” the voice was deep, guttural.

“Do you really think I care?” Fletch’s higher tone broke through his flashback.

Dex’s hand moved before his cognition even caught on to what it was up to, grabbing Fletch’s wrist and twisting until the crack of the bone breaking vibrated in his ears. The other man let out a high-pitched squeal and stumbled back, clutching at the already inflamed arm, his hand drooping down at an odd angle. Rushing footsteps signalled the officers returning. Before either could respond, a burly officer appeared at the cell door.

“What’s going in here?”

“I fell off the bunk,” Fletch said.

The officer’s eyes pinioned from Fletch to Dex.

“I was reading and fell off.”

“Is this what happened?” The officer asked Dex.

Dex weighed his options. The last time someone lied for him was the start of a master game of manipulation.

“ _He’s doing this for a reason_ ,” Nadeem said, placing a hand on his shoulder, the pressure so vivid, as though he truly was standing with him.

The officer didn’t respond to a dead FBI agent materialising before him, as Dex suspected he wouldn’t.

“I guess, I didn’t see it. I was facing the window. Turned around to find him on the floor.”

“Well, we’d better get you to the infirmary,” the guard grumbled.

*

The next morning, Dex avoided his friends at breakfast, hiding at a lone table at the back. Instead of going to church, he returned to his cell, only appearing for his physiotherapist session and meals, aware there would be recompense for their leader’s injury.

They came to him at night. It was clear the officers on duty had been paid off. Dex had been lying in bed on the covers, not sleeping, not moving. Waiting.

When the cell door buzzed open, he was as prepared as he was able, given his limited resources.

The officers had cleaned out the cell of contraband an hour before, in a not-so-surprise random search, removing the items he had stored specifically to defend himself, leaving him with only toilet paper and books. When they rushed him, he threw a philosophical treatise on the existence of Jesus Christ at Julius, in the lead. The edge of the cover lodge deep into the beefy man’s thigh, cutting deep. With his throw of the second book, the edge of the cover rebounded off the protruding flesh of Nathan’s stomach, hard enough to cause him to slow down but not enough to stop him.

They were on him.

Dex clenched his fist and broke Nathan’s nose, which was enough to take him out of the fight… to begin with. However, despite his fighting prowess, without proper use of his legs, and with six on him at once, he found it difficult to throw them off. Bill slammed his knee into Dex’s still healing back and he cried out from intense pain that ricocheted throughout his entire body, causing him to momentarily black out.

“My knee…” Bill was moaning. “What the fuck have they done there?”

Though the neurons in Dex’s brain continued to fire instructions for his legs to move, to kick and struggle, the corresponding muscles didn’t respond. With terror shaking his frame at the concept he could be now paralysed in a permanent fashion, despite the work of the brilliant doctor, Dex flopped down on the bed, stilling himself, not wanting to exacerbate his injuries further.

The surrender of their victim did not cull the rage of his attackers. They scratched his flesh as they tore his clothes off him, bruised his arms and legs as they held him face down onto the bed. A sheet was placed around his throat and tightened. Fresh panic revolted his frame as his chest heaved, lungs desperate for air.

“Let’s give the pretty boy what he wants.”

Dex screamed once more. No one was going to come save him. No one ever did.

The first man climbed on top of him. Dex groaned as an appendage unsuitable without plenty of preparation and lube breeched his rectum, sending shooting pain throughout his wretched body.

I guess I should be relieved I still have sensation down there, he thought, as silent Nadeem watched on.

“Yeah, fuck that bitch.”

Dex bit his lip, refusing to allow them to see him break, to cry out, to show any signal of his anguish, the throbbing inside him-

_“I do this because I love you.”_

The voice had entered his mind as though inserted by an outside force. Deep. Familiar. Similar to Fisk. But not Fisk.

No, no no.

The man was continuing with his frantic motions, unwanted appendage searing the tender walls of his inner channel, the corresponding sting blossoming up his spinal column to blanch out over his entire being.

“Fuck that snitch bitch!”

His rapist gave a strangled cry and collapsed on top of him, to be instantly replaced by another, weight pinning him to the mattress. Again with the familiar burning sensation.

“Yeah, bitch loves it!”

Dex closed his eyelids and Nadeem remained, clear before him in his mind.

_I’m sorry. I’m so sorry._

_“It’s too late. They can do this to you. But it can never be enough. You can never be punished enough for what you did.”_

_I know. I know._

A third man entered him.

“Bitch broke my nose!”

Nathan had laughed with him the other day about a deliberate throw Dex had made from his wheelchair, which had rebounded off the yard wall and hit a maligned prison officer in the head, hard enough to daze but not concuss.

Teeth dug into his neck, the sharp sting an accompaniment to the revulsion lower down. Liquid flowed down his neck now, down his inner thighs, leaving them cold and sticky.

Nathan’s soft laughter once more reached his ears, as he continued to pummel deep inside him.

Wilson Fisk now came forward in his mind. White suit. Dapper. Cold glint in his brown irises buried beneath the warmth.

_“You could have been strong, had you stayed with me. Now you are nothing. They have made you nothing.”_

“This bitch shattered my knee! Hurts like fuck!” Bill complained.

“You gonna fuck him or what?” Nathan asked.

“ _You can still redeem yourself from all of this,”_ Fisk said.

Bill was more brutal than the rest, reaching around to punch his stomach, tearing open the flesh of his thighs with his fingernails.

_“This is a setback. You will continue to recover. And when you do, you will destroy all of them. And then no one will mess with you in this prison.”_

_You manipulated me. You killed Julie._

_“Because it wasn’t real! I told you this. It could have been with me.”_

_No, it wasn’t real with you either._

_“What was real was being the harbinger of death, the pounding heart, as you were the one to decide who lived and who died, the excitement flowing through your veins.”_

The fifth man was slower than the rest, hands gentle over his chest and abdomen, bringing him back to the room, the smell of sex and blood, the cheers of encouragement from the others.

‘You want this,” soft kiss on the folds of his ear.

Terry, always so quiet. Spent a lot of time in the library.

_“Fighting Daredevil. Matt Murdock, You could have killed him and yet you didn’t. Why not? I know it wasn’t because I wouldn’t have been pleased. You wanted him to appreciate you, appreciate your skills, as you appreciated his. The others in the church, the others in the office, they were nothing to you. Cannon fodder. But Matt Murdock, he was special.”_

Terry grunted, collapsed onto him, allowing him momentary reprieve, before the warmth of his body dissipated and the sixth man was on top of him, in him, slamming a heavy object against his skull. A book. Despite the anguish and horror of what they were doing to him, Dex grinned. Julius was clearly not happy with a book lodging in his thigh.

 _“You will go to the infirmary, but you won’t tell them who did this,”_ Fisk said. _“You will want to deal with this yourself. As you always do.”_

Julius didn’t last long at all, crying out his completion within minutes of entering him.

It was over. Dex was at least thankful they didn’t want to go for round two. Still laughing and congratulating him on his ‘performance’, they left the cell.

As always, the Fisk in his head was right. In the infirmary, he refused a rape kit, refused to identify the men who had torn him up inside. He had simply accepted the stitches needed, prep to prevent potential HIV and other STD tests, before leaving.

He would sort this out himself.

*

Fletch was out of the infirmary before him. As soon as he entered the cell, upon returning, the other man put down his bible and patted the bed beside himself.

“You know what they did to me,” it wasn’t a question. “You organised them to do this to me.”

“And they’ll continue to do it if you deny me.”

Dex allowed the bellow of rage to escape his throat at how cleverly he’d been cornered and manipulated. Again.

“Nothing has changed. I will continue to protect you.” Fletch undid his pants to reveal and already erect penis.

Dex glanced at the bible and erection, his upper organs sinking into his lower ones.

“Why are you bible thumpers always such fucking hypocrites?”

Fletch again patted the bed beside him and Dex climbed out of his wheelchair and complied, his stomach lurching, muscles so tight they were painfully grating against each other.

“Touch me,” Fletch aid, grabbing Dex’s hand and placing it on his erection.

_“I love you,” the familiar voice sounded._

_Another voice replied. His own. Only younger. Sixteen._

_“I love you too.”_

He had told no one. Not even his beloved therapist.

Because he had loved him, hadn’t he?

Dex rubbed his hand up and down. Maybe this would be okay. He could get through this. It was only a hand job.

“Use your mouth. No teeth.”

Yes, he could get through this. Would be fine. Besides, Fletch protected him, didn’t he? He’d provided him with shelter, safety, a support network.

As his mouth closed over the engorged flesh, tears ran down his cheeks.

“ _They will never be there for you. Not you,”_ Fisk’s voice sounded.

Fletch did love him, he was sure of it. Did want him to stay.

*

His next visit to the physiotherapist verified his healing had been delayed by his assault.

_“You will push through. See this as the trigger to propel yourself to untold of levels of commitment to healing.”_

Fisk had now replaced Nadeem as the spectre haunting his mind.

As much as he despised the man, Dex realised he was right. He would not be able to seek vengeance on those who had hurt him unless he fully recovered.

The next week, he trained harder than he ever had before. He pushed his muscles until his entire body was doused with petroleum and set alight, until his heart was going to stop pumping from the strenuous effort he was putting it through, his lungs going to tear straight through his ribcage. His physiotherapist voiced his concerns but Dex was adamant.

Push him further, he could take it.

His legs were showing improvement. Little by little, the muscles responded to his commands. One step forward, then two.

The determination to fully heal was even further prompted by Fletch’s voracious sexual appetite. Now he was aware Dex wouldn’t fight him, he subjected him to sexual assault at least once, and up to three times a night. He was never brutal, was careful not to tear or bruise, which was worse than if he made clear his domination, instead of the confusing aspect of acting as though they were lovers; kissing his neck, fondling his penis, whispering in his ear it was okay to feel good, to want it. Fisk and Nadeem didn’t return in these times, weren’t privy to the humiliating truth of Fletch manipulating him to pleasure, even though his very being strained against it.

He had once before cried, may years ago, as forced orgasm shook his being _(Because the other times weren’t forced? Were they? Why can’t I remember?)_. Now, the salty water trailing down his cheeks occurred every time his rapist added this new shame to their forced intimacy. Tears of rage, over shame.

No, he couldn’t believe that. Not entirely.

He was thankful Nadeem’s spectre didn’t join him in those times, was not aware of his craving for the comfort of another person so close to him, fulfilling the empty void for those anguished minutes, even if it was through a shameful violation.

_You really are fucked up._

_What is wrong with you?_

There never was an adequate answer. He had learnt the technical terms; borderline, antisocial. But they never approximated his reality, the obsessive need to be close with another, and yet the repugnance at the intimacy.

To have another assert him he was real. Did exist.

Apart from the odd sneer or lascivious grin, the rest of the gang acted as though nothing had changed, as though viciously gang raping another man was another day occurrence.

Perhaps, for them, it was.

*

“ _You are ready,”_ Fisk said, as Dex stepped into the cell.

The physiotherapist had been right. With his fully healed body, he was stronger, more flexible.

More equipped to defend as well as attack.

Fletch sat on the bed, reading his bible. Always that damned bible.

“You can walk!” Fletch stood up. “Amazing!”

“I just put the wheelchair away,” Dex said. “For good.”

Fletch drew him into his arms and Dex melded to his chest, grateful for the comfort of another human.

“ _This man hurt you. Has hurt you repeatedly,”_ Nadeem’s voice was now back.

Dex pulled back, confusion marring his forehead.

“I knew you could do it,” Fletch smiled.

Against his wishes, Dex smiled back.

“Come tell me all about your big day with the physiotherapist,” Fletch sat down and patted the bed beside himself.

Dex fought to temptation to give in, to discuss his day, to bask in the encouragement of his rapist.

_No, this man is no North Star._

Smiling, Dex picked up the bible from the bed and smashed it into Fletch’s face so hard his nose broke with a sickening crunch. The man squealed and Dex lifted the book to reveal the disfigured, swollen facial feature, blood spouting down his victim’s mouth, before he slammed it into his cheekbone on the other side and the other, jumping onto him and deliberately slamming his knees into his chest, delighting in the sensation of the crush of three broken ribs beneath him, before holding his arms down to the mattress with his knees as he continued to beat him, dropping the book to use his fists to pummel his face, tearing his knuckles on his teeth, which shattered under the force, until Fletch’s face resembled a squashed grapefruit, all puffy and bloodied and stretching out in too odd angles.

Wilson Fisk laughed.

Dex laughed along with him, as Fletch’s screams tapered off to moans. Fisk was an ass but he was correct. Dex excelled in this, the thrill of the destruction of another zapping his adrenal medulla, shooting adrenaline around his already constricted arteries, his fist lifting and coming down. Lifting and coming down. Lifting and coming down.

He was still laughing when the officers entered his cell. Pulled him off the now motionless Fletch.

*

Three days in solitary. Dex couldn’t care less.

There was talk of his life sentence being converted to a death sentence, now he’d murdered a fellow inmate.

Dex attempted to convert the numbness of his mind to any emotion of worry or concern.

Maybe he did deserve to die. Twice before, he had attempted suicide. Perhaps this was another much longer form of taking his own life.

*

When he was released from solitary, he expected to be shanked as soon as he entered the prison dining hall. Instead, the other inmates side-eyed him with wary glances. It could still happen. He wasn’t stupid enough to not be on his guard. However, he suspected his brutal slaying of his own rapist had changed the dynamic. He was no longer a victim.

Still, none of the other prisoners deigned to sit with him or even talk to him. Not even his ex-friends/rapists. Dex flashed on the picture he had drawn as a small child. A little boy surrounded by nothing. No one.

_Am I even real?_

_“That’s not for me to determine,”_ Nadeem answered. _“As I’m not real, myself.”_

*

He sat on his bed, fingers templed, deliberating plans as to how to kill his other rapists. These would be smart. He would not add more obvious murders to his already hefty charges.

“Poindexter. You have two visitors,” the officer stood before the open prison door.

“Who the hell wants to visit me?”

“They say they’re your lawyers.”

“My lawyers?” He only had one lawyer, a scruffy little man with bad breath who flinched every time he came and visited him, which wasn’t often.

Intrigue lifted him from the bed and out of the room, following the officer down the corridor, down the stairs and down the adjacent corridor to the interview room.

“You have an hour,” the officer said, locking the door behind him.

Dex blinked.

_No, this can’t be. This is Fisk and Nadeem. This is in my mind._

“Are you two real?” He asked.

Foggy Nelson had lost weight since he’d last seen him.

“To be honest, an insanity defence won’t work so don’t even bother trying,” Foggy said, wryly.

Beside him, Matt Murdock remained stone faced. Appraising him, Dex continued with his former assessment of the lawyer/vigilante being damned pretty.

But he still filled the red suit out better.

Tbc…


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all who read/commented/sent kudos!  
> I have the next couple of chapters of this planned out, and will hopefully get more inspiration as I go.  
> Warning in this chapter for the usual violence and brutality.

“What are you doing here? What do you want with me?” Dex hesitated, before pulling out the chair pushed into the small conference table and sitting down. He then glanced up, to verify a lack of cameras attached to the corners of the ceiling, before focusing his attention on the two men on the other side of the table.

“We’ve been keeping tabs on Fisk,” Foggy spoke. “Just because he’s in prison, doesn’t mean he can’t cause trouble. And we’ve been keeping tabs on _you_. So, when we learned you beat your cell mate to death, we had to investigate further.”

Dex was unable to contain the spasm the reveal produced in his muscular frame. This shouldn’t have come as a shock, given their history together. However, he was not prepared to handle the sludge that filled his veins, at the concept that he was being spied on.

“Turns out, your cellie was not a nice guy, to say the least. Him and his gang are known throughout the prison for befriending new inmates that fit a certain… type…” Foggy continued.

“Type?” Dex prompted.

“Physically attractive, judging by the media’s reporting of you at your trial-“ Matt said.

“You mean Fletch and his men wanted to fuck me,” Dex said. There was no point skirting around the truth.

 _“If they’ve been keeping tabs on you, does this mean they were aware that your cellmate was a known rapist?”_ Fisk’s hand on his shoulder was heavier than Nadeem’s had been.

“More importantly, _vulnerable_. As we gather, you were recuperating from spinal surgery. Left you vulnerable to predators,” Foggy said.

“Ironic, really,” Matt said.

“I’m still confused as to why you’re here,” Dex leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.

Foggy glanced at Matt.

“Fisk,” Foggy said. “We’re not sure what his game is here.”

“We figured you wouldn’t last more than a day, with Fisk’s contacts in the prison,” Matt said. “But then we learned Fletcher bargained with Fisk to be your cellmate. Fletcher has a lot of sway in the prison system. Why would Fisk bargain with him for _you_? Especially as he would be in direct competition with him?”

The phantom hand left his shoulder, which arched up, needing to be touched once more, reassured of the kingpin’s spectral presence.

“Why don’t you ask Fisk?” Dex asked.

“Mr. Poindexter,” Foggy inclined forward. “There’s talk of them upgrading your life sentence to a death sentence for this crime. Look, Fletcher was a piece of shit. And was known throughout the prison to be a terrible human being.”

“Yes, but I still killed him,” Dex unfolded his arms. A new brown mole had appeared on his left bicep. When did that happen?

_Where is Nadeem?_

He yearned not for Fisk, but for the welcoming presence of the FBI agent. However, as in keeping with the rest of his life, any sense of control was an illusion. Even Nadeem’s hallucination came and went as he wished.

Matt removed his dark glasses to reveal his lustrous dark eyes.

“A case can be made of duress. We asked around and we found out you were in the infirmary a week ago-“ Matt said.

Dex’s heart froze, before triplicating its rate.

_Don’t say it._

“As lawyers, you should know that is a breach of privacy,” Dex’s voice shook. “But then, you don’t care for that, do you, Matt?”

“If they sexually assaulted you, and Fletcher forced sexual coercion-“ Foggy began.

Confirmed. Not only were they privy to the details of his initial assault, they did nothing to prevent it.

Dex reached across the table and grabbed Foggy's pen from the surface. The throw, which would have stabbed it into Foggy’s shoulder, was intercepted by Matt, who snatched the item out of the air. Foggy scuttled back in his chair.

For a moment, no one spoke, Foggy’s frenzied breaths the only sound in the room.

“So it’s verified then. You really are Daredevil,” Dex said.

Matt dropped the pen on the table out of Dex’s reach.

“Fisk told you.”

“After Karen verified it to him. The blind lawyer. You are an intriguing man, Matt Murdock. Don’t worry, I don’t intend to use this information against you. I have other problems… clearly…”

“Maybe it’s in our best interests to help each other,” Matt said.

“You don’t need to help me. I can fix this myself,” Dex said.

“You’re going to kill all of them?” Foggy placed a hand on his chest in an attempt to slow down his breathing.

“If I’m going to death row anyway, why does it matter?”

“Have you considered that may have been Fisk’s plan, all along?” Matt asked. “Knowing you were vulnerable, of Fletcher and his men’s reputation throughout the prison?”

Dex exhaled, his entire frame collapsing in on itself, as he crossed his arms over his stomach. Perhaps he had considered this, but he hadn’t wanted to admit Fisk would be so devious, despite all that the kingpin’s sins, hadn’t wanted to admit that there was a chance Fisk didn’t believe any of his infractions towards Dex, did in fact love him as a son, wanted to be close to him. In Dex’s fantasy, Fisk realised that Julie’s death had been a mistake. He had acted terribly towards Dex and would make amends.

_Stupid! Idiotic! Why are you always such a moron?_

“He…” Dex’s arms shook. He tightened the muscles but they continued to tremble. Why couldn’t he get in control of himself?

“Fisk doesn’t care what they did to you. But he does care how you respond,” Matt said. His voice lowered. “If the DA is aware of mitigating factors, she will forgo the need for a death penalty plea. Believe us on this, it doesn’t look good in the public eye, for them to be going after a man who killed his abuser in prison.”

“Why do you care?” Dex forced himself to look into Matt’s sightless brown irises, so different to Fisk’s. He could discern fury in the dark orbs, but also empathy. Warmth.

_No! Don’t get drawn in. It’s a lie._

 “You don’t, do you? You didn’t care when they placed me in a cell with a known rapist and his gang.”

“We didn’t know-“

Dex laughed, shaking his head.

“It’s true. We were told you’d been sent into the infirmary a week ago, but the story was that you had been beaten. After you killed your cellmate, then we dug deeper, discovered Fletcher’s reputation.”

“You didn’t know?” Dex asked, a kernel of optimism blossoming in his stomach; unfamiliar but refreshing, even scintillating.

“Your crimes are beyond reprehensible,” Matt said. “But we don’t condone rape as punishment. This is not the way the system should work!”

The conviction in his voice, the slight jutting of his jaw. This was a side of Matt who believed in justice and fairness, even towards the lowest of criminals.

Even towards himself.

“You haven’t answered my question. Why do you care?” Dex asked.

 “Well,” Foggy said. “Firstly, for purely selfish reasons, we keep you off death row, you owe us. Secondly, it’s a principled matter. We are against the death penalty. Even for mass murderers as yourself. And I echo Matt. Rape as punitive measure is a sick way to establish justice.”

_Even despite everything that I’ve… They don’t see me as unworthy…_

Dex’s eyelids burned with tears. He swallowed, to keep them falling down his cheeks.

“I didn’t… In the army, in the FBI sniper force, death was sanctioned. I was labelled a hero, for taking another’s life. It’s no excuse for what I did-“

“No, it isn’t,” Foggy said.

“I don’t want to be a bad person,” Dex scooted his chair forward, before elongating his spine, and holding his arms palms up, in a deliberate surrender gesture. “Please, with everything I’ve done. My life was falling apart and I… a lot of people hate me. Fisk, he manipulated me.”

“You still pulled the trigger,” Matt said. “Admit it, you enjoyed killing.”

“When I have structure, I do well. I don’t… hurt others…” Dex implored.

“Father Lantom was like a father to me,” Matt began.

Foggy placed a hand on his shoulder, before turning back to Dex.

“You can either help us help you, or not,” Foggy's face was now devoid of all former congeniality. “You have ten seconds to decide.”

“What do you want me to do?” Dex asked.

“Why did you kill Fletcher? Did Fisk put you up to it?” Foggy asked.

Sweat dripped down Dex’s forehead, dampening his hair, the tremble reappearing in his arms, travelling down to his hands, as he considered whether it would be beneficial to allow them to help him.

“ _Without them, you will be truly alone,”_ Nadeem’s spectral presence stilled his trembles, cascaded warmth through his wretched being.

“He had been… Him and I were…” His internal organs twisted one-eighty degrees and he placed a soothing hand on his abdomen, grimacing. “A couple of weeks ago, he propositioned me. I turned him down… by breaking his wrist. He, in turn, responded by sending his men after me.”

_“Bitch loves it!”_

This time the flinch jolted his entire body, travelling down his neck and chest to his abdomen.

“What did they do to you?” Matt said, his tone gentle.

“Held me down on my cot and took it in turns fucking me,” Dex said, tears now escaping from his eyelids and trickling down his cheeks.

“How many were there?” Foggy asked, expression thawed of its former iciness.

“Six. I hadn’t recovered from my spinal operation so was unable to properly defend myself.”

“You can identify them? All of them?” Foggy prompted.

“They were Fletch’s gang. When I returned from the infirmary, Fletch forced me to comply with him or it would happen again. This time, he vowed it would be worse. I was still paralysed.”

“You mean he coerced you into a sexual relationship with him, through threats of violence?” Matt asked.

Dex nodded. “As soon as I was healed I took my chance to end the relationship.”

“Give us your full statement,” Foggy said. “This will prove you killed him out of duress, to cease continual sexual assault.”

“If you go public with this, it will go through the prison that I was their bitch!”

“Everyone already knows,” Matt said. “Give us your statement and we will talk to the DA, in a private session. It doesn’t have to be public. This is to stop your sentence becoming a capital one. Look, I am disgusted by your actions. You killed the closest thing I had to a father. Not Fisk. _You_. Being in the room here with you makes my skin crawl. But even you don’t deserve to die for your actions. No one does.”

“Matt has this whole code of honour, where he doesn’t kill,” Foggy said.

Dex appraised Matt Murdock. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. Protector of the people. Fisk had tried to bring him down, to use Dex as the bullet in his gun. It didn’t work. With Nadeem, Matt turned out to be stronger, more powerful than even Fisk. He didn’t need to kill, to prove his true dominion of New York.

“ _He’s no pure soul_ ,” Nadeem spoke.

_But he’s still here. Even if he admits I disgust him and he wants to use me, for information on Fisk, he still wants to help me._

“Please, help me. Please…” Dex pleaded.

“Give us your statement on what happened with Fletcher and we’ll try,” Foggy promised.

*

Dex crawled into his bed and pulled up the covers. With a monotone voice, he had told them everything; Fletcher’s manipulation of him, the first gang rape, Fletcher’s subsequent sexual extortion. They didn’t ask for details, for which he was grateful, only the bare facts. However, it didn’t stop the articulation of his repeated violation from being torture. He ceased talking a couple of times, as he was overcome with emotion. Both Matt and Foggy had been compassionate, offering him tissues and speaking in gentle tones. This only served to cause more sobs to rip from his trachea.

To display such kindness for one as himself, a labelled psychopathic mass murderer, one who had killed the one Matt admitted was ‘like a father’.

These were truly great men.

When they left, and Dex shook Matt Murdock’s hand, he had blinked, marvelling at the irony. Two Daredevils shaking hands. One false. One the true protector of Hell’s Kitchen.

The intense emotional outpouring had now disintegrated to numbness, as though his mind only had a finite amount of anguish to display, before it had to shut down, for its own protection. Lightening lit up the room, followed by thunder so loud it was surely going to tear the window from its hinges. Dex closed his eyelids, his brain ping- ponging from one image to another; Matt Murdock’s glasses, to his red suit, to Nathan inside him, bashing him with the bible, to Nadeem telling him this was his fault, his fault, to Fisk hugging him, to-

_A bruising hand held him down onto the mattress. Dex struggled to move up, only not only were his legs paralysed this time but his entire body from the neck down._

_“I’m back and we’re going to have fun, pretty,” Fletcher’s voice was gravelled, his putrescence rising the acid of Dex’s stomach, gagging him. As with the sad spectre of Nadeem, he was back from the dead. Only he wished to continue their intimacy._

_Dex screamed-_

And gasped awake, his heart hammering. Moaning, he fell back onto the mattress.

*

Dex dashed down a quick breakfast, determined to rush to the library. His physiotherapy session had been changed to only once a week, which meant more free time. Though he was more than pleased to visit the man he was considering to be a friend, he was aware he didn’t need the labour, any more. Indeed, he was more energised than he’d been in a long time.

Sitting down on one of the main internet computers, to the back of the room, he glanced around himself. Only one other inmate occupied the library at this time of the morning, perusing books in the ‘Science Fiction’ section to his right. He typed “Matt Murdock” into google, clicked into the news feed and then into the first article.

For the next half an hour, Dex researched the blind lawyer, obtaining as much information as possible. No family. Blind at a young age. Father murdered. Dex appreciated how much him and the real Daredevil had in common. Matt had tried a few successful cases and won, including those of Wilson Fisk, though Dex was aware of those.

One article in particular caught his attention. Typing ‘control-P’. Dex walked over to the printer and asked the librarian- a large blond woman with a constant glare, to swipe her printer card.

“What are you printing?” She asked.

“Just an article on a friend of mine.”

Grunting, she swiped her card on the chip reader and the article printed. Dex took the paper from the tray and grinned. The article was nothing special, merely a puff piece detailing the work of Nelson and Murdock. The information in the right-hand corner garnered his interest; a brief rundown of Matt’s favourite movie (The Godfather), food (a particular hot dog from the stand on the corner of 32nd and 3rd), music (Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Beatles) and book (the braille To Kill a Mockingbird). His mouth was still upraised, as he stashed the paper into his pants pocket and returned to the computer, determined to learn more.

A chill swept through his muscular frame, indicating instinct of an unwanted presence.

He looked over his shoulder, and caught one of his rapists, Terry, stepping into the room, behind him.

_“You want this.” Hands in his hair, gentle, as though making love, and not brutalising another._

Dex swiped a pen off the counter of the front desk nearby and moved to hide behind the shelves of books to his left. His rapist sped to the computer facing the window, glancing around himself, as Dex had done, before bending his head low and typing. Though his stomach acid was throwing a party within the confines of the organ, his limb muscles held steady. Dex aimed the pen and loped his arm back, releasing the pen through the air, where it sped as a projectile and embedded into Terry‘s beefy neck, tearing through skin, muscle and bone, to lodge five centimetres inside, straight through his cervical spine, severing his brain stem. Terry collapsed forward, instantly dead.

_Better than you deserve._

Dex quietly left the room, before the librarian even noticed anything was wrong.

*

“ _They’ll know it’s you_ ,” Nadeem said.

Dex lay back down on his bed, the article in his hand.

“How will they? Circumstantial,” He murmured, trailing a hand over the face of Matt Murdock in the picture.

In a break for the usual stern lawyer, he was smiling.

_No one knows the truth of his true identity. But for me and Fisk. Maybe his friends, Foggy and Karen._

“ _Not even I knew, it’s true_ ,” Nadeem said.

“Vigilante and lawyer. How do you do it? Reconcile those two parts of yourself?” Dex asked the frozen man in the picture.

*

The shower room, a great fear for attractive or otherwise men going to prison, had not been a concern for Dex. His repeated sexual assaults had occurred in his cell and the shower was used for its intended purpose; cleansing oneself. Since his encounters with Dexter and his gang, he had used the facilities more than was necessary, yet still couldn’t erase their grime from his person. Them entering his body had spread dirt throughout his system, lodging in his capillaries, then his organ cells, where no matter how much he scrubbed, he could never get inside, to clear the scourge away.

However, he had to try, scrubbing himself until his skin reddened.

Had he been the real Daredevil, he would have heard the men coming. However, it wasn’t until the other prisoners had left the shower, and the three men entered, the officer locking the door behind him, that Dex comprehended he’d been set up.

“Now Fletcher is gone, you have no one to protect you,” Bill said. “We’re going to kill you, bitch. But first you’re gonna feel all of our dicks in your sweet ass one last time. I go first.”

Fury coursed through his arteries, giving him strength, and Dex grinned. With his spinal column not only intact but strengthened, these men were idiots for wanting to attack him now.

Bill took a step forward and, upon seeing Dex’s face, hesitated.

The slick of a shiv flicking, as Julius circled around behind, goosepimpled the flesh of the back of Dex’s neck, exploding blood to the muscles of his limbs and readying them for action. Crouching low to keep balance, he swiped out with left leg, taking Nathan’s out from under him. His rapist hit the ground in a loud thud and curse, as Dex spun around and kicked Julius in the stomach, throwing him back, before launching himself on both Julius and Bill, in a flurry of kicks and punches, while avoiding Julius’ desperate swipes with the knife. Nathan jumped back up and Dex now took on all three at once, wrestling the shiv from Julius, and throwing it at his furthest opponent. The weapon sliced right through Nathan’s left eye and into his brain and he dropped and lay, motionless, on the ground.

The other two, upon seeing the body of their friend, hesitated once more. That was all Dex needed. He bent down and snatched the knife from the skull, and propelled it at Bill, where it lodged in his neck. Unsatisfied with the throw, he jumped up and kicked it further in, before elbowing back Julius, taking the knife from Bill’s neck, ducking the resultant arterial spray and slicing it across Julius’ throat, making certain to cut deep into the carotid artery. As both fell to the ground, clutching at their necks and attempting to stem their spouting arteries, Dex peered down at them.

“Who’s the bitch now?”

None of his rapists answered, too busy gurgling their last breaths.

He frowned, wiped the knife of fingerprints and placed it in Nathan’s hand.

_Not the best one liner, but then I’m no Tony Stark._

The cell door opened and the officer stepped in, eyes widening as he surveyed the scene before him, before focusing on Dex.

“They attacked each other, didn’t they? Killed each other. You weren’t there,” he said.

“I wasn’t there,” Dex repeated.

*

“You spoke to the DA?” Dex asked, moving to his usual position before Matt and Foggy.

“She’s asking for proof of the initial attack. Do we have your permission to obtain your medical records?” Matt asked.

“I didn’t get a rape test done,” Dex frowned.

“Yes, but there would be other proof of sexual assault,” Foggy said.

Dex bit his lip, his mind returning to that night, lying on the infirmary bed on his stomach, with the nurse talking in calm tones, beside him.

_“The doctor needs to examine you. We’ll give you something to ease the pain.”_

“The doctor tried to urge me to get the rape kit done. I guess it was pretty clear what had happened.”

Both Matt and Foggy’s faces scrunched in identical expressions of disgust.

 “You honestly don’t believe I deserved what they did to me?” Dex needed reassuring.

“No, I don’t. Nor do I believe your abusers deserved to die for what they did. There is due process,” Matt said.

“Which you follow when you go out and beat up abusers,” Dex said, effectively shutting Matt’s mouth. “I don’t have a problem with it. I’m simply pointing out your hypocrisy.”

“We know what happened,” Foggy said. “We have our own contacts. Four of the members of Fletcher‘s men have turned up dead. One with a pen through his neck.”

“What are you accusing me of?” Dex clenched his fists under the table.

“There’s no proof,” Foggy continued. “And the prison is eager to cover it up. They’re saying one man put the pen through his own neck. The other three killed each other. But we know the truth. _You_ did it.”

Dex stretched his lips out into a grotesque grin.

“If it were true, would anyone blame me? Making sure my own abusers won’t be able to hurt me or anyone else again. You said so last time we met. They had a reputation in the prison. I wasn’t the first. I wouldn’t be the last.”

“Last time we spoke, you said you needed help. Killing people in prison is not going to give you what you want,” Matt said.

Dex wasn’t sure whether or not to believe him. Would it give him back his soul? Direct his moral compass? No, it wouldn’t.

Did it give him a sense of justice and protection from others who had previously wished him ill but were now too frightened to approach him?

He’d have to be in the definitive yes, for that one.

“You have my permission to obtain what you need from my doctors. Anything else?”

Matt and Foggy shook their heads.

*

Even if Dex had wanted to keep to his vow to not kill any more people, the logic of the prison system prevented him from doing so. He had systematically killed five of his seven abusers. Derek, rather than wait for Dex to come to him, decided to go on the offensive. Hence, as soon as Dex stepped into the gym, two hours from the interview with his lawyers, Derek stood before him carrying a barbell, with three other men behind him, bearing similar bald heads and ferocious expressions.

“I’m really not in the mood for this,” Dex said.

Derek lifted the barbell and one of the men darted a shiv towards Dex.

So, they were attempting two angles of potential death. Dex had to give them credit for originality. The other two men in the gym preferred fists and legs. Correctly guessing Shiv-Man to be the lesser target, Dex went for him first, ducking the first swipe, while manoeuvring out of the range of the raised barbell, which crashed to the floor behind him with a loud thud. He then kicked and punched the other two men out of the way, stepped forward and broke Shiv Man’s wrist, taking the knife from his hand and kicking him back, as the man swore and screamed, out of the fight, as he cradled his disfigured appendage.

_Pussy._

Dex threw the knife at one of the three circling remaining man and it buried deep into his shoulder. Second man out of the fight.

_Damn, this is almost embarrassing!_

The remaining two, he managed to get on the ground within less than a minute.

Silly of them to think they could go against a trained FBI sniper and combat man. With the room now appearing as a casualty tent of moaning bloodied patients bearing non-life-threatening but painful injuries, Dex walked up to the now downed Derek, who lay on the floor, groaning.

Of course, he should let this go. These men had come in to kill him. He had incapacitated them.

But no, he couldn’t. He was never going to let the man who had breeched his body without his consent live.

“ _Do it!”_ Fisk stood behind him. White suit Immaculate.

Dex picked up the weight his attacker had initially lifted and threw it. He didn’t turn to look, didn’t need to hear the sickening squelch or scream of horror, as it landed on Derek’s face.

*

“You can’t help it, can you?” Foggy stood and paced. “Funny how people who abused you in here keep ending up dead!”

“You gave the infirmary reports to the DA?” Dex asked.

“There was no doubt the brutality of your assault, backed up by your infirmary reports detailing the injuries. She has decided to forgo the capital case,” Matt remained seated.

“She has?” Dex let out a loud exhale, his shoulders drooping. He hadn’t even been aware how much this had been weighing on him, until it was no longer an issue.

“Seeing as you have a life sentence anyway without the possibility of parole, there’s not much else to be done there.”

Dex allowed the first smile to grace his lips in days.

“Thank you. Thank you so much!”

“The men attacked in the gym. They’re denying you were there! Say they don’t know who killed Derek Jansen,” Foggy said. “All a case of collective amnesia! Who is protecting you?”

“Derek Jansen was in Fletcher‘s gang, was one of your attackers,” Matt said. “You killed him but not the others in that gym, why?”

“Because… because I’m trying to be good. A good person kills their rapist but not innocents.”

“Hardly innocent if they were attacking you,” Matt pointed out.

“I was not in danger of being hurt,” Dex shrugged. “Not with full control of my body back. If I want to kill someone, believe me, I will. I could have killed _you_ any time I wanted, you understand?” He asked Matt.

“One of your attackers who survived, the knife went into his shoulder,” Matt said, a new light appearing in his lovely eyes.

Dex responded with a smirk.

“I like you, Matt. You’re fun. I never wanted you dead. Taken out of commission, but never dead.”

“You being _good_ is still killing people!” Foggy shook his head.

“I was defending myself! These people attacked me. I have every right to defend myself from harm.”

“I agree you needed to defend yourself,” Matt said. “In this case. Though you still went too far in killing them. You’ve gone through a terrible trauma. Have you spoken to anyone?”

“How often did you listen to those tapes of my childhood therapy?”

Matt had the decency to flush.

“Will you be safe?” Matt said.

“Nothing is going to happen to me. Not now,” Dex said.

*

His seventh and final attacker had decided on a different tact again, than the others, waiting in his cell as he walked in. Corey stood up from the bed, wiping sweat from his upper lip.

“I’ll do whatever you want. Please don’t hurt me. You want a blow job? I can make it good for you.”

Dex laughed.

“Why would I want you anywhere near me?”

“I’m… I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry…” Dex frowned. “You’re sorry!”

With rage flooding his system his hand clasped around the young man’s throat, applying pressure.

“Please…” Corey begged.

This one had gone second after Derek, had not even hesitated, laughing at his moans of pain and anguish.

“Just die!” Dex shouted, lifting him up in the air, as the man scratched at his fingers. He wrenched his head to the left and a loud snap signalled his neck breaking.

Gasping, Dex dropped the body to the ground before running at the wall and slamming his head hard against it, blood dripping down his nose to his mouth. A quick touch of the area denoted no obvious break.

Footsteps sounded down the hall. The prison officers appeared at the cell door.

“He attacked me,” Dex said. “I had to defend myself.”

The two officers glanced into the cell.

“Come with us.”

“Excuse me?”

“Come with us.”

*

The men were silent as they escorted him along the walk way into the yard. Dex didn’t bother asking where they were going. If it were to his death, so be it. Perhaps it would be a relief after all he’d suffered.

Past the yard, they entered a separate building, moving up three flights of stairs, to plusher cells than in his block. At least three times the size.

The biggest stood at the end. As large as  a motel room, with a television, carpeted floor, and Wilson Fisk, himself, standing before a plush lounge suite, smiling back at him.

“Dex! Please come in.”

Tbc…


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to all who have read/commented/sent kudos. The response to this fic has been awesome! I am truly grateful to every one of you.  
> Warning in this chapter for talk of underage sexual abuse (Dex was sixteen when it occurred).

Seeing the great man (and he was a great man, regardless of Dex’s hostilities with him, he couldn’t deny this wasn’t the case, even if his ‘greatness’ relied on the suffering of others), Dex was torn between ramming his fist repeatedly into Fisk’s shiny bald head and dropping to his knees, offering his servitude.

_Nadeem?_

No response from the phantom haunting his mind.

“Let’s sit down and talk,” Fisk gestured to the nearby lounge. Leather-bound. Would retail in the thousands. Dex didn’t bother asking how he was able to obtain such furniture in prison, nor did he bother to enquire about the landscape painting hanging on the west wall.

“I’d rather stand,” Dex said. The door behind them clicked shut and locked, a reminder that despite the grandeur around him, Fisk was still a prisoner.

Dex recalled a conversation he had with Nadeem, not long after they had transported Fisk to his protective custody with the FBI. Nadeem had told him of a conversation with Fisk, where the kingpin had said he was a prisoner because of his love for his lady friend, Vanessa. The two FBI agents had laughed together, not believing a psychopath could fall in love.

“ _You would know about that_ ,” Nadeem’s voice sounded behind him.

Dex closed his eyelids, relief washing over him. Nadeem had returned.

_I’m not a psychopath._

“ _What do you call someone who killed people indiscriminately?”_

“There is great hostility in you,” Fisk said. “Of course, there would be. You feel betrayed by me. I hurt you.”

He took a step forward. In response, Dex stepped back.

“Don’t come closer.”

“We hurt each other. Dex, Julie could never cure you. You understand that, don’t you? You need to accept what you are. Who you are. As I do. It’s okay…”

Dex forced his lips up into a twisted smirk. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now?”

Fisk walked over to the coffee table before the lounge chair, poured himself a cup of water from the jug seated on top and took a sip.

_Foolish, Fisk, to show me a potential weapon._

Dex didn’t need to be obvious, in scouting the room for what could be useful, should he wish to end Fisk’s life; the water jug, the cup, the vase by the left wall, the painting, the television and television bracket, the coffee table itself.

“After the wedding…” Fisk placed the cup back down on the table and walked back towards Dex. “I lost control. You and Matt Murdock were trying to kill me. Worse, to destroy the happiest day of my life, to humiliate me in front of Vanessa. However, I’ve had time to ponder on what has occurred. I understand your actions, and I forgive you.”

Dex’s chest heaved. A part of him wanted to grab any item nearby and lodge it deep into Fisk’s grinning face. A larger part longed to believe him. Fisk was remorseful, did understand Dex in a way that no other could.

_No, remember Julie. Don’t buy his lies._

“That’s why I organised and paid for Doctor Oyama to perform your surgery,” Fisk said.

The bizarre experience of the room fading away shook Dex’s consciousness. He clenched his fists, digging his fingernails into the palms of his hands, to force himself back to the present situation.

 “He is the best,” Fisk continued. “Not only would he cure you. He would make you stronger, more powerful than you would ever-“

_No, no no. Stop this!_

“You placed a _rapist_ in a cell with me!” It took all of Dex’s control to keep his voice at an even pitch.

Fisk’s brown eyes flittered down.

“An unfortunate mistake. I failed to comprehend the length of time for your rehabilitation. Fletcher was a scourge on this system. It’s true, a rapist who has ruined the lives of countless prisoners. I knew as soon as you became aware of his reputation, you would take care of him and his beastly group.”

So, there it was. Dex was surprised by the intensity of the surge of hurt that squeezed his innards. His faith that Fisk wouldn’t subject him to abuse nor want revenge was now brutally dashed.

“So, you used me, manipulated me.... again!”

Fisk took another step forward.

“I said step back!” Dex now placed a hand up, as though it would be enough to stop him, if he wanted to come closer. However, Fisk complied. “He was a threat to you. That’s why you wanted him killed. You didn’t care about him being a rapist.”

“As soon as I heard what they did to you. What he was doing to you, I realised my mistake. I am sorry, Dex-“

“Please, stop,” Dex could no longer look into Wilson’s eyes, which brimmed with fake regret.

“I can only hope one day you will be able to forgive me, as I have forgiven you.”

Such a soft voice. At odds with his brutal demeanour. Dex recalled rescuing him from the ambush, the vulnerability and terror that the kingpin displayed.

_I literally saved his life. And, in turn, he ruined mine._

“Please stop talking,” Dex pleaded.

“All I could do was make sure you were protected, as you took your necessary revenge on those who had harmed you,” Fisk lowered his tone. “There are others who will do you harm. I made certain, and will continue to make certain you won’t be touched again.”

“ _He’s manipulating you. Don’t be foolish enough to fall for it again_ ,” Nadeem’s voice sounded by his right ear.

Forcibly erecting his spine, Dex looked Fisk in his faux concerned eyes.

“I can’t stand here any more and listen to your lies! Kill me if you want. I don’t care. Just leave me alone!”

Dex then stalked over and stood by the door, trembling.

“Let me out of here.”

“Of course,” Fisk said. “I will continue to protect you in here. Keep you safe.”

The door buzzed open, and Dex stepped out, to the prison officer waiting on the other side, refusing to glance in Fisk’s direction.

*

A chill seeped into the darkened cell, goosepimpling his bare arms and legs. Dex held the twisted blanket in his hands, staring out to the half-moon, broken in half again by the bars. The task would be difficult, the bars were narrow, but it could be accomplished. Sheet wrapped around the bars and around his throat. He would then succumb to the final dark sleep. No more Fisk. He could join Julie, Nadeem and the others, in blissful nothingness.

Only, his hands refused to move, his legs as paralysed as they had been after Fisk had shattered his spine.

_Terrible if I don’t even have the strength to kill myself._

Dropping the sheet to the ground, Dex placed his head in his hands and released his grief in a wail that propelled up through his diaphragm, loosening clenched muscles in its wake.

Loud knocking sounded on the wall next to him.

“Shut up, freak!” The voice of the prisoner next cell over drifted through the concrete.

Dex clambered back onto the bed and lay face down, the phantom hands of his past abusers lingering on his corrupted flesh.

*

Matt sat alone this time, behind the conference table.

“Where’s Foggy?” Dex asked, as the door slammed shut and locked behind himself.

“Couldn’t make it. Family emergency.”

Dex plonked himself in the chair opposite and stretched out his legs.

“Can we make this short? Because I’m not in the mood.”

His mind was fuzzy from lack of sleep and numb from continual emotional bombardment. Perhaps today he would work up the courage to kill himself, or Fisk.

“Alright, let’s start by talking about Fisk.”

Of course. The conversation always involved the damned kingpin. Couldn’t they talk about anything else? That favourite hot dog of Matt’s, what topping did it have on it?

“He arranged for me to meet him,” Dex said.

Matt leaned forward in his chair.

“He’s on the other side of the prison, in this crazy cell made up more like a penthouse. Tried to tell me he was protecting me, that he was sorry for what had happened between us. Oh yes, and he admitted to allowing Fletch into my cell, only he was sorry about what happened there too,” Dex shook his head and templed his fingers behind his skull, leaning back to stare at the ceiling. A crack branched out along the left cornice.

“This is good!” Matt said. “Believe whatever lies Fisk tells you. If you’re in with him we can-“

“And what if I say no?” Dex lowered his neck to face Matt. “What if I say I’m sick of being manipulated by both of you?”

Matt didn’t respond. Dex waited, for the reassurance, the words of comfort or threat. The silence stretched out between them.

“This could have all been very different, for the both of you. For all three of us,” Dex took a deep, shaky breath. “The night Fisk came for me, gave me the Daredevil suit, I was seated at my kitchen table, with a gun in my mouth. Had I gone through with it, a lot of people would be alive right now.”

“Fisk would have found someone else,” Matt’s tone wasn’t unpleasant.

“Yes, you’re right. But it doesn’t change the fact I committed terrible acts. Tell me, Matt, you’re a Catholic. What happens to those who suicide?”

“I would have these discussions with Father Lantom,” Matt said, brown irises glittering with convoluted emotion. “I would have… doubt. What am I doing? Is it right? What’s the reason for it all?”

“The human condition,” Dex said.

“Father Lantom would say…” Matt’s brow furrowed, as though the words caused him pain. “He would say you remain here to make amends. If you truly want to change, it’s up to you to do it. God’s not going to give you a map to the prize at the end,” A tired yet beautiful smile lit up his delectable visage.

“Everything that’s happened in my life…” Sweat trickled down his right temple. “Maybe it was all heading to this moment, maybe there was no choice.”

“No, there is _always_ choice. Always. You _chose_ to go after Karen. Father Lantom chose to step in front of her, exchange his life for hers.”

“I keep making the same mistakes. You know my therapist used to say my moral compass isn’t broken, it just needs one to realign it. I chose the wrong person in Fisk.”

Matt’s lips thinned.

“A lot of people choose the wrong person in Fisk. He’s a very convincing, charismatic person. That’s, I believe, his true evil. Your childhood therapist, she helped you immensely, didn’t she? Answer me this, after you started seeing her and before Fisk, did you harm an innocent?”

“I killed as a part of my job. But when it came to civilians. No.”

“It doesn’t at all justify what you did. But it does go way of explaining it.”

Wilson Fisk. Charismatic. Manipulative older man.

_“It’s okay to want it.”_

Fletcher had said those words while he was inside him, as Dex’s brain endeavoured to sort the pleasure from his rapist’s hand on his erection, from the anguish and terror of not wanting what was happening to his body to begin with.

“Mr. Poindexter, are you alright? Your heartrate had just jumped up thirty beats a minute,” Matt said.

“Dex, please. Call me Dex.”

Fletcher had not been the first to say those very words while inside him.

_“You’re very special, Dex.”_

He had wanted to believe it at the time. His sole male north star before Fisk.

_You see, Matt, being repeatedly raped has surfaced previous memories I’d rather forget._

_Because it was abuse, wasn’t it?_

Matt Murdock, good Catholic boy and lawyer. He would know, wouldn’t he? He had more of a moral compass to at least sort out true abuse from mere manipulation. Or were they both the same thing?

 _“He also runs around in a red outfit with devil horns,”_ Nadeem stood to his left. _“Do you really think he’s the right person to discuss morals with?”_

“Can I tell you something I’ve never told anyone, not even my therapist?” Dex asked.

Matt nodded, swallowing. “Okay…”

Dex tilted his head back. Better to focus on the crack in the ceiling, than the one before him.

“When I was sixteen I joined the army cadets. I was already deciding to join the army at eighteen, so this was another way of establishing order. A rhythm. My commander was a man by the name of Frank Keams. Charismatic, well liked. Funny. Also, a brilliant tactician. He… chose me. I don’t know why. Maybe he sensed I was different. One night he invited him to his house. He was married. Wife wasn’t home. Offered me alcohol. I refused. Started touching me. I froze. Then we were in his bed and he was fucking me. I didn’t want it. Wasn’t attracted to him in any way. But I let it happen. It kept happening. He was such a good leader, was good for me, in a way,” He absently wiped a tear from his cheek. “Kept order in my life. And if the payoff was he fucked me, well, it wasn’t as though he made it hurt…”

Dex risked tilting his head down, observing Matt’s reaction.

“What happened to him, in the end?” Though Matt’s face was calm, his eyes flashed fire.

“I don’t know. I ended up leaving to join the army after two years. Lost contact. I’m not saying he made me the way I am. You know from the tapes I was showing signs that I wasn’t right from an early age. But it is interesting, his parallel with Fisk. Older man. Charismatic. Manipulative. Of course, Fisk isn’t interested in me sexually-”

“I’m sorry,” Matt said. “What he did to you was wrong. Very wrong. We can find this man. Karen can do the research. You wouldn’t have been his only victim.”

“I want to forget it,” Dex said.

“I understand,” Matt said. “But you should talk to someone-“

“I couldn’t even talk to my therapist about it! Besides, I’m talking to _you_. He’ s still out there, somewhere. If I did find him, I would kill him.”

“If we find him, we could take him down,” Matt’s sudden faster speech was reminiscent of his best friend, Foggy. “There would be other victims. Guaranteed. Go through official processes. Bury him in prison. They don’t tend to like men like him in prison. Guaranteed, his life would be hell.”

There was that word again. Victim.

“ _Because you’re both,”_ Nadeem said _. “Perpetrator and victim.”_

“I don’t want to be a victim, anymore. But I don’t want to be an abuser, either. I don’t want to be like Fisk,” Dex said.

“It was terrible for this man to take advantage of you,” Matt said. “Particularly if you were working on changing negative aspects of your behaviour. As with all predators, he saw a vulnerability and exploited it.”

Dex wasn’t sure why he told Matt his most precious and well-protected secret. Now that it was out, and Matt had responded not with judgment but compassion, tingling warmth spread through his overwrought brain, calming the rapidly firing neurons.

“Maybe you can… locate the man who hurt me all those years ago.”

A new expression crinkled the handsome face, that Dex found difficult to read.

“If that’s what you want, we can do that.”

“Thank you,” Dex said. “Frank Keams.”

What would he do when they located the man who exploited him all those years before?

_What would Matt do? He wouldn’t kill him. That isn’t his code._

“I won’t kill him,” Dex said. “If Karen can locate him, we’ll deal with it your way.”

Matt nodded, features suffused with sympathy. Dex squirmed in his seat, not used to this level of kind treatment. In the army and FBI, any display of vulnerability was squashed out by superiors as well as comrades.

Weakness was not accepted and furthermore, was grounds for mocking by the others.

“Times almost up,” Dex said.

Matt glanced at the door, before leaning forward, in a conspiratorial fashion.

“Listen, there is an officer who is with us and not in with Fisk. When you go back to your cell, he’ll give you a special cell phone. Any text you send gets converted to a voice message from my end. New Stark tech. Obviously, you need to hide it from Fisk as well as the others.”

Dex nodded, memorising aspects of his comely visage; the stubbled jaw, dark eyelashes; dark hair, in preparation for replaying the visit in his mind later.

*

Officer Zablowski clipped the bars of his cell with his baton. Dex stood from where he’d been sitting on the bed, attempting to decipher the bible that both Matt Murdock and his rapists had been so fond of, and stepped over. The cell phone, the size of a matchbox, slid into Dex’s front pocket. Zablowski winked and continued on his way.

Dex came over and sat down on his cot, taking the phone out and frowning. He opened the cover, which slid out to a keypad three times the size, just big enough to type the letters. Going through the contact list, Dex noted only one contact.

Red.

Amusing.

Dex’s fingers hovered over the keyboard, as he considered typing, before he switched the cell phone shut and hid it back in his pocket.

*

“Dex,” Fisk said, standing in front of a new hideous brown mat, that appeared as though the coffee table had defecated beneath itself.

Dex stiffened in his embrace.

“I apologize. I merely wished to show affection,” Fisk said, pulling away from him. “I failed to consider the repercussions of what those sick men did to you.”

Dex tilted his head, peering at this man.

No, not man.

As many in New York would prefer to view him, Dex now recognised him as a monster.

And now he was returning to him, to do as he wished. He’d been a whore to Fletch and his gang, as well as Frank Keams, so many years before.

Now, he was a whore for Fisk in all but the actual intimate act.

“You still don’t trust me. I understand,” Fisk said.

“What do you want me to do?” Dex asked, folding his arms.

Fisk raised a brow. “Nothing! Tomorrow, you will move to this more luxurious side of the prison. This way, you are protected from those despicable other prisoners. You are worth more than the others, Dex.”

Dex ignored the fluttering in his stomach these calming words caused.

_Don’t. Buy. Into. This._

“Is there anything else?”

“How are you? What do you need?” Fisk’s voice lowered.

“Nothing. I need nothing from you,” Dex said.

Fisk’s nodded, his irises gleaming with opaque emotion.

*

Dex only just made it into the cell, the door of which slid shut and locked behind him, before his legs gave out from under him. He crawled onto his bed and forced his face into the pillow, as he’d enacted when he was being raped, breathing in the thin fabric in the hopes of melding into it, moving deeper down through the cold concrete of the cell floor, to the dirt beneath, travelling away from the horror above him, to the earth core, miles below.

Though the linen had been changed, the scent of their carnal knowledge of him still entered his nostrils, assaulted his brain. The ghosts of their hands still held him down onto the mattress, stroked his back and sides.

“ _They won’t harm you again_ ,” Fisk’s spectral hand on his back was as tender as when Fletcher had touched him.

“No…” Dex moaned, resisting the urge to push upwards into the touch.

When Fisk had embraced him earlier, he had both welcomed and rejected the contact. Another man. More manipulation.

Fisk was no north star, could never be. And yet, even now, Dex refused to believe it, wanted to believe with the strength Matt Murdock worshipped his own God.

Pulling up, Dex grabbed the bible off where he’d left it on the table by the cot, skimming through the first pages, which detailed what pages to turn to, in hours of need.

Mere words.

He couldn’t believe, as Matt did, never perceived God. Or perhaps it was more that God wouldn’t allow him to perceive Him. Perhaps he simply wasn’t worthy.

_Who am I?_

The sensation of being separate from himself, having nothing concrete to hold onto, grasping at the tendrils of reality, returned in full force.

“No please, please…” He begged.

Spectral Fisk had disappeared. Nadeem was also gone.

_Because you killed him. You caused all of this._

Pulling the cell phone out of his pocket, Dex opened the keypad and pressed Matt’s number, typing a simple message.

_I need to see you. Please, as soon as you can._

_I’m drowning._

He sent the text before he had the opportunity to reconsider and waited, holding the mobile, his heart pounding, enlarged pupils lightening the dusky room.

 _“You shouldn’t have done that,”_ Nadeem said, standing before him. _“He won’t get back to you now. Won’t visit you again.”_

“I need… I’m drowning…” Dex had no other way of describing the detached and yet weighty oppression bearing down upon him. “Please…”

Seconds stretched to minutes. Dex continued to stare at the phone.

Minutes stretched to tens of minutes. Instead of lessening in anxiety, Dex’s anxiety grew. He paced up and down the cell, his intestines knots upon knots upon knots, his mouth dry of saliva.

Tens of minutes became an hour.

“Please… please don’t abandon me…” Dex whispered.

An hour became and hour and ten. An hour fifteen. An hour twenty.

The phone buzzed. Dex jumped, gripping tight to avoid dropping the item. His heart was now racing so fast the beats felt as though they were joining together to form one continuous beat.

Dex swiped into the message.

_I can be there by eight-thirty tomorrow morning._

_Until then, use the resources you have learned to keep yourself safe._

Dex blinked tears down his cheeks, swiftly typing back.

_Thank you._

*

Matt again appeared alone in the conference room.

“Hi,” Dex said, taking the chair opposite and biting his upper lip.

The anxiety of the night before now seemed as years before, replaced with dull embarrassment. He told himself that texting Matt Murdock had not been a wise move, of which Matt was surely going to scold him for.

“I have to tell you something," Matt said. He was wearing a red tie today, which brought out subtle shades of dark red in his hair. “I seriously considered whether coming to you was a good idea. When you sent the message, I was unsure how to respond. I went to the church, spoke to Sister Maggie…” He trailed off for so long Dex was about to prompt him to continue before he started again. “She asked me to consider what Father Lantom would want. I replied we both know the answer. He would want me to go to you. To try help you. That’s the godly thing to do. I’m not godly. But then, nor was Father Lantom. Not long before he died, I learned that. As he was dying, he asked me to forgive him. I’ve never been good at that. But I’ll try. I believe everyone can be rehabilitated. Even Fisk. Even he has the promise of becoming a better person. That’s why I didn’t kill him. If I don’t try help you, then that goes against the core of who I am.”

“You are a good man,” Dex said.

“No, not even half of a good man. Father Lantom once told me God speaks in whispers. The whisper is this… whatever is happening between us…I will try and help you. And maybe I can learn from you.”

“Last night… I’d gone to see Fisk, said I’d go back to him. Sometimes, when everything feels as though it’s falling apart, it’s as though I don’t exist. I can’t explain it. I need verification I’m here. That I exist. Thank you for getting back to me.”

“Well, I did get help. Sister Maggie coached me on the wording of the text.”

Dex told himself he wasn’t offended Matt had told another about the text. That he had replied was enough. He glanced down and noticed Matt’s bruised, bloodied knuckles. Frowning, he pointed at his hands.

“You need to take better care of that,” he said.

“My hands?”

“Do you mind if I have a look?”

Matt shrugged and held his hands out. Dex studied them closely, gripping his fingers and turning them left and right.

“You should bandage them. You don’t want them to get infected. Also give them a good clean. Is that dirt in the wounds?” He noted the brown grit in the shallow lacerations on Matt’s left knuckles. “Really not sanitary.”

“You sound like a nurse I know,” Matt said.

“Don’t worry about disinfectant. Water. Really give it a good scrub, then bandages. Keep it covered until it healed. Unless, you want an infection,” Dex frowned.

Matt grabbed Dex’s hands, rubbing his fingers over the knuckles. The tender touch raised the hair of his arms.

“Smooth, not scarred, interesting considering your old line of work in the FBI and army,” Matt said.

“Because I take care of my hands. My most important body asset. You don’t need expensive moisturiser. Sorbeline cream does well.”

“Hm…” Dex felt the loss, as Matt released his hands.

“I looked you up,” Dex said. “Did some online research.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Well, I did find out your favourite book is ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ I would have thought the bible would be more to your taste.”

Dex paused, waiting for the inevitable worry to cross over Matt’s features, the suspicion to narrow his brows. Instead, he shrugged.

“Pretty dry at times. Heavy stuff.”

“I cook a good salmon fusilli pasta. Make the pasta myself. It’s my favourite cuisine. Yours is a hotdog from the stand on thirty-first and third.”

“I remember that article. I couldn’t think of anything at the time, so I said that. Although they honestly do make great hotdogs.”

“You said your favourite movie was The Godfather. Funny, because mine is another one of Coppolla’s, Apocalypse Now. Brando was amazing in that film. Did you know he adlibbed the dialogue? Such an amazing look into the human condition. And what they had to go through, to get the film made. There’s a fantastic documentary-“

Dex trailed off. Matt’s face held an odd expression, a cross between bemusement and intrigue.

“My favourite book is ‘Catcher in the Rye,” Dex said, changing tact.

“You’re serious?”

“Of course! Well, actually, no. I’ve never read it. I am aware of the conspiracy theory involving crazy people as myself reading the book before they go on killing sprees.”

“I don’t think you’re insane.” Matt said.

“You don’t?”

Matt shook his head.

“Have you read Catcher in the Rye?”

“It’s a good book. I’d recommend it. So, what is your favourite book?” Matt asked.

“Hm…” Dex leaned back in his chair and cross his fingers over his abdomen. “It would be hard to choose. I do read a lot.”

Matt again eyed him with the peculiar expression. “I’m now picturing you sitting on the lounge, in your overly ordered and clean apartment, eating salmon pasta and reading a Dan Brown novel.”

“Not to your taste, is it? All that talk of Jesus having descendants?”

“That and it’s terribly written.”

“You won’t get any denial from me here. I play Chopin in the background, to pretend I have class, while I read my ‘terribly written’ novels.”

Matt’s laughter prompted laughter of Dex’s own, more from surprise over true humour. The laughter trailed off to a not uncomfortable silence.

“Well, if there isn’t anything else you want from me, I’d better go,” Matt said.

“When will you be back?” Dex attempted to keep his tone civil, ignoring the fluttering of his stomach.

“I guess, the next time I’m needed here. Take care when dealing with Fisk.”

Both stood. The intrigued and bemused expression colouring Matt’s features switched to confusion, which furrowed his brow.

“Are you alright?” Dex asked.

Matt shook his head. “Nothing. It’s nothing. We’ll speak again soon.”

Tbc…


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you to my lovely readers!  
> Onto the next :)

“Here are your new quarters, your highness,” the officer affected a curtsey.

Clutching the bible tight in his hand, Dex peered around the cell. The room was a tad bigger than his previous one, and held the advantage of a double bed, bearing what was, on further inspection, a duck feathered quilt and fluffy pillows, far different from the rock-hard pillows and thin sheet-blanket of his previous cell. The wooden bedside table had been polished and was lacking in the graffiti of his old one. Indeed, even the walls had been freshly painted. Nowhere on the pale surfaces of any of the furniture, including the desk and chair opposite, or wooden chest under the window, were there any political rants, nor anguished declarations of love.

Placing the bible on the bedside table, Dex crossed the room to the entrance opposite, which led to a sink, toilet and glassed in shower. A test of the taps confirmed heated water.

Dex walked back through the entrance to the main area.

“In an hour, we’ll come and pick you up to visit Fisk,” the officer said.

Beside her, Zablowski displayed a perfect poker face.

Dex nodded, waiting for them to leave and lock the door behind him, before examining the room in detail; pulling out the single draw of the desk and running his hands and eyes over each aspect of the oaken furniture, kneeling on the floor and combing his hands over every portion of carpet, stripping the bed and lifting the mattress off, before examining the base, then doing likewise with the bedside drawer and chest. Methodically, he went through every portion of the room, searching for any subterfuge, such as a listening device or camera. After examining the walls and ceiling, and being convinced the room was, indeed, bare, he replaced the furniture, remade the bed and picked up the bible, opening it, to reveal the cell phone wedged inside. He’d received the idea from a film he’d viewed years previous, where a character hid an item in a bible in prison, in the knowledge no staff would look in such a distinguished book while conducting a search. The day before, he’d stolen a pen from the library, tore out a section from the middle of the bible in the shape of the mobile, and hid the item inside.

The lack of flashing of the device indicated no text from Matt.

Dex closed the bible, placing the tome back on top of the bedside table and walked back into the bathroom. He didn’t suspect Fisk would place subterfuge in the bathroom, but he had to be certain. A detailed, methodical search revealed no hidden surprises.

Breathing out through pursed lips, Dex frowned back at the lack of door leading from this room to the next, before stripping off his clothes, adjusting the tap, climbing into the shower and closing the glass behind him, allowing the water to soothe his tense muscles. The fact he had his own shower was a deliberate ploy from Fisk, he was certain, to ease him into his side. Ridiculous. He had showered with men before in the army and never had a problem with it. Even after his sexual assaults, the communal shower wasn’t the issue.

Spying soap, he tore the packaging off and frowned. Not his preferred brand. Sure enough, as he rubbed the bar against his belly, the scent of lavender reached his nostrils. He could now visualise himself visiting Matt, and Matt’s keen nostrils picking up on his overwhelming smell. The next time he was able to, he vowed to find soap to his own liking. However, for now, he stooped to lathering himself with the repugnant lavender soap.

*

“Dex, please sit down,” from his position seated on the lounge chair, Fisk nodded at the officer to leave the cell.

“I’ll stand,” Dex folded his arms.

“Very well,” Fisk dropped the newspaper in his hands onto the coffee table and stood up. “How are you?”

“Fine.” _As if you care how I feel._

“How is Matt Murdock? Yes, I know he’s now your lawyer. I take it you didn’t tell him that you are aware of his Daredevil identity?”

That Fisk was aware of his dealings with Matt came as no surprise. However, Fisk’s use of Matt’s name pounded his heart against his ribcage.

_Damn it…_

“Why would I do that?” Dex lied.

Wilson’s smile failed to reach his cold flat irises. “Of course not. He will, of course, try and manipulate you for information on me. I’m not too concerned. Daredevil is but a small player in a bigger plan and I’ll deal with him myself, when the time comes. For now, I’ll allow you to continue seeing him.”

“How gracious of you,” Dex made clear his sardonic tone.

Wilson’s mouth flicked up in a vulpine grin. “I have a proposal for you.”

“I’m sure this is going to improve my life a thousand-fold,” Dex ignored the sound of his pulse clanging in his eardrums.

“I would like you to be my bodyguard,” Fisk continued, ignoring his sarcasm. “You won’t have to do much, just follow me around two or three hours a day when I go to the gym or library or appointments. I mainly stay in my cell, where I am well-protected. Not so much outside of my room.”

_Hold on, what?_

Dex had to admit that Fisk had a certain style, in his audacity.

“You want _me_ to protect _you_?”

“You are the best. Simple as that. I wouldn’t trust anyone else with my life. This is even despite our current problems with each other.”

Dex allowed the giggle that ripped out of his larynx, from Fisk’s underestimation of his loathing for himself.

_Current problems meaning I will kill you when it’s convenient._

_No, Matt Murdock refused to kill him._

_Nor will I._

“I take it from your bemusement you aren’t taking this seriously?” Fisk asked.

Dex took a moment to consider Fisk’s proposal. Fisk would provide protection from the other inmates. He would also be closer to Fisk’s operations, which would give valuable intel to Matt.

“ _You’re not seriously considering working for him again_?” Nadeem materialised at his side.

“Who here would potentially go after you? The Albanians?” Dex asked.

Fisk nodded. “Among others. Some would try go after me just to make a name for themselves.”

“ _This is not a good idea_ ,” Nadeem said.

_No, probably not._

Dex bit his upper lip and held out his hand.

Fisk’s corresponding shake was tight and vigorous.

*

Fisk had only just entered the gym, with Dex in front, when all four converged on them at once. Though Dex was prepared as always, he inwardly sighed. It would have been pleasant to have a session of watching Fisk grunt as he pumped weights. Instead, in his first hour of being an official ‘bodyguard’ for Fisk, the kingpin was already being attacked.

Dex did not consider himself a fool. This was no random attack. He was being tested by Fisk. Using his fists and feet, he took out the first two men rushing Fisk with shivs within ten seconds of coming within a metre of them, breaking three ribs of one and the arm of the other, before throwing their own two knives at the other two attackers; one dug into the third man’s thigh, and the other buried into the fourth’s shoulder. As the other prisoners rushed out of the room, and the four would-be assassins lay on the dusty gym floor, moaning, Dex stalked over to Fisk, who had pushed his hefty back up against the south wall.

“I take it I passed the test?”

“This was no test,” Fisk said, rushing and stomping on the head of the one with the broken arm, who was struggling to his feet. Blood pooled out of his cranium and he fell down again and was still.

_So much for keeping them alive._

“These have been hired by Albanians,” Fisk said. “If this is the best they have, I will be fine. But then, not many are sharpshooter master fighters, as you are.”

Dex was still unconvinced it wasn’t a test of his abilities.

“We should inform the officers they need to go to the infirmary.”

“You didn’t kill them.Why?” Fisk asked.

“I don’t do that anymore. Is that going to be a problem?” Dex rolled his eyes, and snatched the knife from the fourth attacker’s shoulder, before turning him and shoving the weapon into his back, straight through his sixth thoracic vertebrae, as the man screamed. “There, now he’s paralysed. He won’t go after you again. Should I paralyse the others?”

A chorus of “No! Please! Mercy, please!” echoed around him.

Fisk shook his head, an opaque expression lighting up his brown irises. He came to Dex and placed a hand on his forearm. For the first time since meeting him again in the prison, Dex didn’t flinch away.

“I am so glad you’re here, Dex. So glad.”

Though it seemed impossible, Dex believed Fisk to be telling the truth.

*

“Hello there,” Dex said, pulling his chair into the table, as the door closed and locked behind him. “There is plenty to talk about today. But first… well, there’s no denying what you were up to last night.”

Matt’s face now contended with his bruised and bloodied knuckles. His right cheek was discoloured a spectacular array of purple and yellow and his lip was cut and bloody. Another lighter brown contusion graced his chin.

“I was dealing with the mess of Vanessa Fisk,” Matt said. “Yes, she has turned out to be as vicious as her husband. She’s been very good at running Fisk’s operations while he’s in prison, while showing a philanthropic face to the public.”

“She’s back in New York?” Dex asked.

“They dropped all charges against her. She’s already garnering public support, by publicly distancing herself from Fisk but of course we know the truth. Karen is trying to find something to stick to her, but this is turning out to be as tricky as Fisk, himself. She also has no problem organising hits for those she considers a threat. I’m injured,” he pointed to his bruised and bloodied visage. “Because last night I attempted to defend a working family who refused to sell valuable real estate to her. Too late. Her men slaughtered all of them. Of course, this won’t get back to her.”

“I’m sorry to hear this,” Dex said, frowning. “I have news also. Fisk has tapped me to work for him, as his bodyguard. He knows about you too. I told him I haven’t informed you I know you’re Daredevil.”

Matt’s complacency to this news proved to Dex that he also had guessed that Fisk would be aware of their communications.

 “I’m being protected by the Albanians,” Matt said. “This room is theirs, so it isn’t wired. Well, the reality is half the Albanians want me dead. As well as you. The other half want the long con to play out. That means both of us staying alive.”

“Civil war,” Dex said, amused at the concept. “Could they go after Fisk? Because four of them tried to attack him today. I considered it a test of my skills.”

“Maybe,” a groove deepened in Matt’s forehead. “From what I gather there are two branches of the Albanians. The ones who went after Fisk in the transport, they belong to the other side of the ones who allow us this room. They obviously want you dead, as well as Fisk.”

He blinked and lowered his head, touching his left temple.

“Sorry, I… I feel nauseous.”

His frown deepening, Dex scooted back, clambered out of his chair and moved to kneel before him.

“May I have a feel of your skull?”

Matt nodded and Dex leaned closer, roaming his fingers over his head in an investigative manner before being rewarded with the sensation of a rough bump behind Matt’s ear. “You may be concussed. Do you have a headache?”

“A little. If I am concussed, it’s minor.”

“I wouldn’t take these things lightly. Repeated hits to the head have a culminative effect,” Dex said, gingerly gripping his chin and turning his face from left to right, to examine the bruises at a closer angle. They were ugly but there was no inflammation or suspicion of any fractures. “I have studied human anatomy and physiology in detail.”

“Of course, you’re an expert marksman and fighter,” Matt paused, sniffed. “Yes, that’s lavender. Is that a new soap?”

Dex released Matt’s face. “Not the soap I’d use. As an expert marksman and fighter, it was always important for me to treat my body as a temple. I would suggest you do the same. If you wish to continue as Daredevil, that is.”

Matt tilted his head, his unseeing eyes now directed at Dex, teeth displaying in a whimsical smile, that spread warmth from the centre of Dex’s abdomen.

 “I can’t see you, obviously, but I know a lot in regards to how you look, by the weight of your steps, the strength of your muscles as you fight. You’re taller than me and more muscular. I can hear your chest hair brushing against your t-shirt as you breathe. A lot of men wax their chest hair off. Odd little distinctions you pick up on as a blind man. Like the fact you have short straight hair.”

Out of impulse, before his brain could determine the ethics of the action, Dex risked gripping his hands and bringing them to his face.

“What do you feel?” He asked, expecting Matt to pull away, to respond with a punch or slap, to ask what the hell was he doing? Instead, when Matt ran a finger over his chin, Dex drew in a sharp breath, cognisant that Matt would sense his sudden increase in pulse, the scent of new sweat dotting the line of his hair. His fingertips continued up his cheeks and over his forehead then down his nose, creating sparks in their wake.

“Interesting,” Matt said, moving his hands down. “Strong features. Masculine, you could say.”

“I do enjoy being a man,” Dex teased.

“A lot of men feel that way. We are the ones with the dominant power in society.”

“How did that happen?” As he made his way back around the table to his chair, Dex’s mind went to Julie.

“I’ll have to bring Karen here. She can answer that for you.”

Both men’s mouths bore equal smiles.

_What is happening between us here?_

_Why did I just touch Matt’s face?_

_Why did he allow me to touch his face?_

“I didn’t kill them,” Dex said, determined to move away from their bizarre moment. “The men who went after Fisk. I told Fisk I don’t kill any more. He stomped on one of their heads and killed them. But I can’t be held accountable for what he does.”

“Are you saying you now have a ‘code’?” Matt’s lips quirked.

“Maybe I should change it to I don’t kill unless I absolutely have to,” Dex said.

“Dex…” Matt frowned. “If you truly are trying to redeem yourself, there is a way that can prove to others you are telling the truth. Karen came up with this idea.  Some of the family members of those you killed are willing to visit you, to talk to you in person. Hear them out. Listen to their pain.”

“I can’t do that,” Dex said, straight away, without considering the implications. No, Matt didn’t understand. It would be too much. He was barely holding on as it was. But to introduce a grieving parent or partner who actively hated him?

“ _It would destroy you_ ,” Fisk’s soft whisper sounded in his ear.

All of Matt’s former congeniality was swiped away in his new aggrieved expression.

“I see.”

Dex’s arm twitched. Why was it twitching? He held onto his bicep with his other hand but it continued spasming.

“You think I should do this…”

“I think you should do what is right for you.”

Dex considered Matt’s bruised and bloodied visage, the injuries a testimony to his good nature, to him defending the weak.

“I want to do what’s right.”

Matt didn’t respond, simply stared back at him with his blind yet fathomless eyes.

“The thought terrifies me. However, if they want to meet up with me, I’ll do it. I promise, I won’t do anything to… I’ll try not to hurt them further.”

Matt unfolded his arms. “You sure?”

Dex nodded, then furrowed his forehead. “Not really. But I want to do what’s right.”

_What you think is right._

“Alright, I’ll talk to Karen. Will take a week or so. By the way, we’re still looking into Frank Keems for you.”

“Thank you,” Dex said. “You’re doing so much for me. And for your friends and New York as a whole.” He paused. “This is probably going to sound crazy to you, but maybe you need one night, where you don’t go out dressed as a red devil, to eat well and sleep early.”

“Is that what you did, when you wore the costume?” Matt asked, with a slight acidity to his tone.

Dex’s heart spasmed, as though Matt had rammed his fist straight into his chest.

“I played so perfectly into Fisk’s hands. At the time, I wasn’t thinking of you or anyone. But I enjoyed being in the outfit, I won’t deny it. Made me feel powerful. I was falling apart at the time. But this… opportunity… it was so messed up…” Dex shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m amazed you can even sit here with me. But I’ll make it up to you. That’s my promise.”

Matt’s eyes skittered to the ground.

“Fisk gets in all of our heads. Including mine,” Matt’s pitch lowered. “But I’m glad you said sorry. It’s a start and was important to hear you say it if I’m going to work with you.”

“I can say it over and over-“

“Stop, it’s fine,” Matt said.

“Will you see a medical professional if that concussion gets worse? I’m serious here.”

The hue of Matt’s cheeks deepened, his brown eyes glittering.

“It has occurred to me…” Matt began. “Growing up was difficult but I did have a loving father, the support of the church. Even so, I’ve been pushed to the edge of killing. I managed to hold back. You didn’t have loving parents or any boundaries. If I’d had your childhood-“

“No, Matt,” Dex refused to acknowledge where he was heading. “I take responsibility for what I did. I can’t blame my past. As you’ve said, it may explain my actions but it doesn’t condone them.”

Matt ran his fingers over his bruised knuckles, lips down turning.

“Anything you can give me on Fisk…”

“I’ll be careful. He doesn’t see you as a threat… for now.”

“Hopefully it will stay that way.”

*

“Dex? Max,” the chubby redhead held out his hand.

Dex shook his fat hand, uncomfortable under the other man’s cheery grin.

“Damn… handsome…” Max said, as Dex completed a quick search of the small conference room, for anything that could be used as a weapon. Apart from the two chairs and table, it was clean. “Don’t worry, I don’t swing that way but my boss… he was a friend of Fletcher. Can I give you some advice?”

Dex looked up from where he was peering under the table.

“The ones who have been made bitches in the prison are now seen as easy prey. I’d be careful, if I were you.”

Dex elongated his spine.

“I’d like to see them try.”

“My boss likes them younger. Late teens but he may make an exception for you-“

The door opened and Fisk stepped in.

“Clean,” Dex said.

Fisk nodded and moved further forward into the room, followed by a man at least four times his size. By the way his throat whistled as he breathed, and the sweat drenching his t-shirt as he sat, Dex was surprised he wasn’t clutching his upper chest and turning purple. Although his flesh was already a mottled red.

“Thank you for meeting with me, Hasani. We have much to discuss,” Fisk said.

“I already know what you’re going to say,” Hasani said. “You want to bribe or threaten me into obtaining control of my cigarette smuggling operation. Drugs and alcohol don’t do as well, do they?” His thick lips curled up into a smirk. “But cigarettes… what prisoner doesn’t want a good Marlborough?”

“You are aware of my influence and power here. We have been at odds in the past-“ Fisk said.

“You mean when we tried to take you out upon your release to FBI protection, only for our men to be taken out by your friend here?” Hasani gestured to Dex.

Max, standing beside Dex on the other side of the door, shot him a wink.

“This constant turf battle isn’t working for us. It would be more productive if we worked together,” Fisk said.

Hasani swivelled his head, to linger his eyes up and down Dex’s physique.

“Handsome, isn’t he? Tell me, Fisk, how often have you fucked him?”

Max flicked Dex a grimace that read ‘Told you… sorry’. Ignoring him, Dex bit down into his tongue so hard he tasted metallic blood.

_Don’t react. Don’t do anything stupid._

“If we get back to the matter-“ Fisk said.

“Tell you what, you give me one hour with your bitch, negotiations will run smoother.”

Dex shuddered under his slimy gaze. With great effort, he forced his muscles to still.

_If he touches me, this time I will kill._

“I heard from Fletcher that he is fantastic fuck.”

“You would also have heard that he killed Fletcher,” Fisk said. “And all of his men.”

Hasani turned his gaze back to Fisk and Dex’s muscles loosened, his intestines unclenching.

“There will be no deal. Your bitch here may have protected you in the gym but that will be the last time he’ll one up us. When you least expect it, we’ll come again. This time we’ll make it slow, painful. And you will watch while we fuck your bitch repeatedly from both ends until he’s begging for us to kill him and then we’ll slit his throat.”

Fisk didn’t appear the least unmoved by the threat.

“Thank you for allowing me this time to speak to you.”

Although the handshake appeared civil, both men’s eyes were as steel. Hasani rose and nodded at Max, who gave Dex a slight shrug. As Hasani departed the room before Max, his gaze again wandered up and down Dex’s body, causing the flesh to wish to tear way from wherever the brown eyes lingered.

“Are you alright?” Fisk said, standing.

“Fine,” Dex said, refusing to allow Fisk, of all people, notice the effect the man had on him.

“He will regret his disgusting behaviour towards you,” Fisk said. “I guarantee he will regret this.”

*

Dex sat on the shower floor, legs drawn up with arms folded over them. The water continued to cascade down, the initial near scalding heat now warming down to a slight coolness. Though he had scrubbed himself with his new soap, as well as shampooed and conditioned his hair, he still couldn’t dispel the dirt from his pores. His mind kept flashing on Max’s warning, on Hasani’s taunts.

If this was true, and he was now a target for more sexual assault, when would it happen and where and with who? He was a skilled fighter but how many could he hold off at once? Ten? Twenty? How many until the inevitable?

Then there was the issue of his new ‘code’. He refused to kill. But what if it was necessary? Surely, Matt would understand if murder was for self-defence purposes?

_“Handsome man… pretty boy wants to be fucked…”_

He would expect, at this point, for the world to move away from him, for the numbness to creep over his body. However, the opposite was occurring. Each new emotion was as sharp as a physical strike. His eyes were unsure whether to cry, as his larynx unsure whether to laugh. Adding to the emotional weight was a physical weight, his abdomen cramping, head pounding.

_What is happening to me?_

He wasn’t sure if he could survive this torment.

_Matt. Matt will be there tomorrow._

_Remember Matt._

The thought did little to calm his anguish.

*

“You want to know a secret?” Matt asked, as Dex took a chair before him. The emotional impact had numbed but he still experienced bouts of alternating anger, sorrow and shame. “I took your advice! Took the night off. Went for a drink with Foggy and Karen. Went home, watched tv. Guess what was on?”

“What?” Dex said, dully.

“Apocalypse Now,” Matt laughed. “I watched it. Quite a brilliant movie. I concur. I had a good sleep and I’m now energised to go out tonight.”

Matt’s good mood had the effect of leeching into Dex’s frazzled mind and soothing the zapping neurons.

“Matt, Fisk tried to negotiate with the Albanians. They turned him down. Threatened him.”

“So, nothing new, then.”

Dex considered whether to tell him about the personal threat to himself. What would it achieve? Matt had no way of helping him outside the prison. He would deal with it, as ever, by himself.

“Tell me, Matt. You’ve been in New York all your life, haven’t you?” Dex asked, wishing to steer the conversation from happenings at the prison.

“New York is my home,” Matt said, a distant look elevating his features, which always occurred when he talked of a great passion. “Sometimes I think it would be great to go out, explore more of the world. Maybe I’m being isolationist staying here. But there is so much that needs to be fixed. It would be counterintuitive to leave, even for a few months.”

Dex recalled a small village in North Afghanistan, hundreds of smiling, waving children.

“The whole world needs to be fixed,” Dex said. “In the army, I don’t know whether what I did made things better or worse. Or neutral. Kill one baddie, another takes his place.”

“You were seen as a hero,” Matt said. “After the attack on the FBI entourage. That was what the press was calling you, when they discovered your military past. The hero of the day, as well as in war.”

_No no he has it all wrong!_

“That was never my intention!” Dex insisted. “I needed order. Stability. To have good people around me. Most of the soldiers were. Even if the cause was seen as unjust, they honestly believed they were doing the right thing, honestly believed they were helping. I guess I did too. But I never wanted to be a hero.” Dex paused. “Can I ask a personal question?”

Matt nodded.

“Why did you do it to begin with? Go out on your vigilante spree?”

Matt’s teeth brushed his bottom lip.

“It just culminated. Went out one night to confront an abusive father. Felt good to hurt him. I wanted that rush again. Kept happening.”

“So, you admit you enjoy it.”

“Yes, and no. It’s complicated.”

“I understand,” Dex said.

Matt rewarded him with a toothy grin that fizzed excitable bubbles in his abdomen.

“You continue to surprise me. Every time I believe I have you pegged, you turn around and do or say he opposite,” Matt said.

Dex smiled back. Had he ever met anyone who was as genuinely intrigued by him as he was by Matt, without an agenda to manipulate him? He suspected not. To be regarded as more than a human being, but an interesting and complicated human being, was a welcome change.

“Your pulse has increased,” Matt said.

“What else do you sense from me?”

“You washed your hair in the shower. Your breakfast consisted of toast with jam and coffee before you brushed your teeth. You’re perspiring.”

Dex grabbed Matt’s hand and placed two fingers on his wrist.

“You’re right. My pulse has increased.”

Matt’s ribcage rose and fell in a more laboured fashion, encouraging Dex’s own pulse to increase. With a creased brow, Matt pulled away.

“I should… I should go…”

*

Dex actively whistled, as he strolled down the corridor to the interview room. In the two days since Matt’s visit, both Fisk and his physiotherapist had commented on his upbeat mood. When not accompanying Fisk to the gym, which was emptied of prisoners, and where he was subjected to Fisk’s grunts between musings about Vanessa and concerns with the Albanians, Dex had, for the first time in a while, decided to be creative. The drawings of his room consisted of too crooked lines and implausible dimensions. However, he worked on these ‘not-so-masterpieces’ with a relish not experienced but for when he was practicing baseball as a child.

Zablowski beside him shot him a puzzled glance, before undoing his cuffs, opening the interview room door and gesturing him to go in.

Dex stood in the entrance and froze.

Foggy was the sole occupant of the room.

“Where’s Matt?”

“Go in,” Zablowski ordered.

Dex trudged two steps in, allowing the door to slam behind him.

“He couldn’t make it.”

“Oh…” Dex wasn’t prepared for the disappointment crushing his innards. Slouching over, he pulled the chair out and slumped down, legs and arms drained of all energy.

_What have I done?_

“We’ve located who we believe to be Frank Keams. He’s working as a high school gym teacher in Florida. We need to verify it is definitely him.”

“Right…” Ordinarily, this news would have affected more than a shrug.

_Please Matt…_

“When we do, we will move forward, with your permission.”

Dex shrugged again.

“Did Matt say why he couldn’t make it?”

Foggy adjusted his tie. “It’s a personal matter. He won’t be able to make the next appointment either.”

*

Dex tore open the bible as soon as he arrived back in his cell. The visit with Foggy had been short, with Foggy correctly deducing Dex was not going to give him more than sullen one-word answers. He couldn’t blame the man for the irritated glance before he left. Dex didn’t dislike Foggy, he merely wanted Matt to be there.

Throwing the book to the ground, Dex flicked the phone cover up and texted, with trembling fingers.

_Is everything alright?_

He stared at the device, as though he could stare straight through the wiring and electronics and plastic, to the blind eyes at the other end, straight through the optic nerve and into Matt’s brain.

The text pinged back.

_I can’t come any more. I’m sorry. Foggy will come from now on._

Dex blinked, his heart competing in a marathon with his lungs as to which could work the fastest.

_Please, Matt. At least tell me what I’ve done wrong…._

_Besides the obvious._

This time, he waited a full five minutes, before the text pinged back.

_I’ll be there tomorrow at 9._

Dex’s breath shuddered and he collapsed downwards against the edge of the bed, clutching the cell to his chest.

*

This time, when he came into the room, Matt stood at the front of the table, which had been pushed back.

“Matt, what-?”

Matt’s right leg swung up towards him, with the clear attempt at a devastating blow.

“Matt!” Dex blocked him with his knee.

“No!” Matt launched himself at Dex, kicking and punching, as Dex defended himself by blocking, not wishing to hurt him.

“Stop this!” Dex demanded.

Matt cried out once more and pushed Dex back, delivering a roundhouse kick that landed and sent him colliding into the table. Before he could rise, Matt was on him, pinning him down onto his back on the table with his weight. Dex was aware he was better at long range fighting. Up close, Matt held the advantage, particularly if he was trying not to fight the deranged daredevil.

“Get off me!” Dex struggled, pushing him back. “What is wrong with-?”

“We should end this right now!” Matt’s sweaty hair flopped over his forehead.

“End what?” Dex pleaded.

Matt moved forward, attempting to punch him once more and Dex managed to grab his arms and pin them.

“Stop this!”

“No, you don’t get to do this! You’re a monster!”

Hurt now intermingled with bewilderment and Dex pushed him back.

“If this is what you believe, then-“

Matt moved forward once more and Dex was there to meet him. They exchanged blows, with Dex deflecting, faces within inches of the other.

Dex wasn’t sure who leaned forward first. Perhaps they both did at the time.

Their lips mashed, tongues desperately exploring each other’s interiors. Matt’s mouth tasted of his own blood, his hair soft in Dex’s hands.

Matt pulled away, chest heaving, eyes wide, before their lips met again, tongues again fighting for control with each other, as their arms and fists had enacted. Only, now their hands were doing their own exploring. The warmth and softness of Matt mouth was in opposition to the muscle of his abdomen. Matt’s own hands tugged at his hair, squeezed the flesh of his back.

Dex was the first to pull away.

“What the hell was that?” Dex demanded. “Why did you attack me?”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… with all of this…” Matt gestured to him. “It’s all gone out of control.”

“I deserve an explanation,” Dex said.

“I’m sorry I can’t… I can’t explain what’s happening to me, to us,” Matt said. “You should leave.”

Dex exhaled, attempting to calm his raging heart.

“Alright, fine.” He knocked on the door, waiting for Zablowski to answer.

“Dex…”

Dex waited for Matt to explain his behaviour. However, he said no more, as Zablowski opened the door.

Tbc…


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks to all my readers of this dark and crazy fic. :) The usual warnings rape/abuse/violence. Dex and Matt are pretty messed up in this.

The door was already open, so Dex, spying his physiotherapist inside the compact office on his laptop, lightly tapped the wood above the handle.

“Ben!” The physiotherapist spun around in his computer chair, his thick black eyebrows shooting up. “How can I help you?”

Dex glanced at the laptop screen behind the man’s muscular frame, displaying the half-finished notes for a ‘Jerry Wong.’

“I’m early, sorry. I figured I-“

“Early? Ben, your appointment isn’t until tomorrow.”

“Is it? Oh…” Dex’s cheeks flushed.

Following the incident with Matt, he’d retreated back to his cell, the neurons in his brain firing in increasing sporadic bursts, as though they had been spaghettified and forced back together in new and bizarre patterns. After pacing and attempting to focus, he had laid down on his cot, only for the room to spin. Picking up the bible revealed no answers, particularly as he’d torn out the middle section. He had then come to the wrong conclusion he had a physiotherapist appointment that day.

Or was it more that he needed the physiotherapist appointment?

Discipline. Set boundaries.

A structure to his life.

Why was it the more he longed to have a concrete structure in his life, the more it was apt to be blown apart, sending him snatching at floating gossamer threads?

“You ok, Ben?” The physiotherapist asked.

“ _His name is Deakin. Why is it you can never remember his name_?” Nadeem asked.

“Deakin, my life is a mess,” Dex said. “Well, that’s pretty obvious, me being in here. I need structure… guidance…”

“Ben, I’m not the person you should be talking about this with,” Deakin said, frowning and adjusting his collar.

Dex took a step further into the room, rubbing his hands against his thighs. Deakin needed to understand, to tell him he was doing okay, he wasn’t going to slide back into becoming that horrible monster who slaughtered innocents.

“ _Psychopath,”_ Nadeem’s breath coasted across his ear, as he cringed and averted his eyes to the ground.

“People see me as a terrible person. Fair enough. I’ve done terrible things. But I’m trying to… change… Maybe it’s too late for me. When I have control of my life I…” Dex looked up and noticed Deakin’s pained expression. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come in here.”

_Idiot, Dex! Just go and ruin this burgeoning friendship too!_

Deakin stood and walked to the door, clicking it shut.

“I have a confession to make,” Deakin exhaled through pursed lips. “When I first found out you were going to be one of my clients, I told my superior I wasn’t going to take you on. I was horrified by your crimes. But then I decided to be professional and treat you as just another client.”

There it was, the familiar, yet always odd detachment of himself from his reality. Deakin’s voice was far away, echoing down a deep chasm. Dex was buried, choking…

Drowning.

“I see.”

Laughter sounded behind him, a heavy hand landing on his shoulder.

“ _He is disgusted by you as all of the others_ ,” Spectral Fisk laughed.

“I got to know you,” Deakin continued. “And I no longer saw the man who committed those terrible crimes. And they were horrific, truly horrific, Ben. But it was hard to consider the people who suffered because of you, when you were asking me my favourite ice cream flavour or expressing genuine tears of frustration after failing to take one step. I would go to work, see you and feel such guilt. But I now believe you truly are remorseful. I like you, Ben. Genuinely, and I no longer feel guilty about that.”

Sensation returned to his fingers and feet, the cool air-conditioning against his bare arms, the rise and fall of his chest.

“I like you too,” Dex said. “I want to improve. I honestly do.”

“I believe you,” the empathy Dex was aware he didn’t deserve shone in the other man’s blue irises.

 _“You won’t change,”_ Spectral Fisk said. _“You can’t. What you were when you were with me. That’s the true you. That’s the you who is truly alive.”_

_Leave me alone._

“Are you okay?” Deakin asked.

Dex forced a smile.

“I should go. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

*

“….so proud of her. That perfume she wears. The intoxication…” Fisk sighed and picked up a heavier weight from the rack.

Dex nodded, only managing half of his usual observations of the three other inmates in the room. For the moment, all three were concentrating on their weightlifting. Fisk had been talking non-stop for ten minutes about his infatuation with Vanessa, which was good, meant he didn’t have to concentrate on what he was saying.

Fisk grunted as he curled the weight up to his bicep.

So far that morning, he’d resisted the urge to check his cell phone… more than four or five times. The phone remained obstinately free of any blinking light indicating a new message. At one point, Dex had flung open the cover and texted an erudite message detailing in exact measures how Matt could fuck himself, but then erased the text.

No, he needed Matt, didn’t he?

 _“You don’t need anyone, Dex. You’ve established that,”_ Nadeem’s gentle tone cut through Fisk’s meandering _. “Always alone.”_

Cutting Matt off for good would be simple. Excuse himself from Fisk, take calm steps out of the room, continue down the corridor, turn right then left then right again. Enter his now open cell, take out the cell phone from the bible, text the message and send.

No more Matt Murdock to concern himself with.

After he’d perfected tying the sheet around the shower head and then around his own neck, no more anything to concern himself with.

“ _That’s too simple a solution,”_ Nadeem said _._

Fisk placed the weight back down on the rack and turned to the other three in the room.

“Get out of here!” He ordered.

All three did as he suggested, rushing out of the gym as though a grenade had been thrown in the centre.

“Dex,” Dex’s skin attempted to crawl away from the surprising tender touch, as Fisk placed a hand on his shoulder. “I understand things have been jumbled for you, of late. You crave order. I promise things will calm down. Give me a couple of days.”

“I’m fine,” Dex said.

Fisk patted his shoulder. “No, you’re not. But it’s okay. No one will hurt you here. You’ll be safe. I guarantee it.”

Dex bit his lip, to cease the laughter welling in his larynx from coming out of his mouth.

Safe, as in when the known rapist and his gang organised with Fisk to be his cell mate and then subjected him to repeated sexual assaults?

Or perhaps when the head of the Albanians threatened Dex with sexual assault and Fisk did little to deter the harassment?

_Why am I even here?_

_“Why are you?”_ Nadeem asked. _“You can leave at any time.”_

“I don’t feel well,” Dex said. “I need to go lie down.”

“You have been through a lot. I’ll finish this gym session early,” Fisk said, faux concern etched across his broad visage.

*

Upon arrival back into his cell, and flinging the bible open, Dex noted no flashing light on the hidden phone. He replaced the gadget in the bible, his abdominal organs squeezing.

_It’s fine. It’s all fine._

His constant mantra. Of course, he was aware it was all a lie. However, he was at a loss as to what else to do, how else to convince himself that the conundrum of his life was not the great fuck up he presumed it to be.

*

_Matt launched his right fist and knee forward. Dex again blocked him. They were back in the room, fighting once more. This time, Matt wore not the white shirt, black tie, grey pants and leather shoes of his lawyer outfit, but his black daredevil costume. Dex ducked a kick from Matt and came up to block another fist from the left, then one from the right._

_One of the hits connected, as they had in reality, and Dex was launched backwards onto the_ _table, only this time, rather than the jab of the edge against his back, forming a colourful bruise later that night, the table’s edges were as sharp knives, digging deep into his spine, slicing through flesh, bone and cord. Dex’s legs went numb and he dropped, the same panic, the same fear enveloping him, as when Fisk had crushed his spine._

_“I can’t move!” He screamed._

_His now dead weight lifted, was flung forward, over the table, his trousers and boxers shoved down to his knees. A new terror thrilled his system. New and yet familiar._

_“Please Matt, no, don’t… please…”_

_Arms stronger than they had a right to be held him face forward onto the cold metallic surface._

_And then Matt was in him, tearing through delicate flesh. As he had when the first of many men forced their way inside him, his body clamped down, attempting to expel the offending object. Matt moved. Too fast. Too brutal. And Dex was hard, harder than he’d been in a long time. He didn’t want what was happening, was begging for Matt to stop, and yet he was so hard, it was as though his erection was going to poke through the flesh of his own abdomen and straight through the peritoneal sac into the ropey squish of his intestines._

_“Please Matt, please!”_

_“Shut up!”_

_Matt tore through him, fucking him harder and harder into the table. And he was screaming and screaming. Begging not again not again not again. And he was coming, coming so hard crying out in ecstasy-_

Dex gasped, his quickly returning consciousness revealed by his rampaging heart and gasping breath. As he became more aware of his body, an added feature exposed itself.

For the first time in months, since before his gang rape, he was erect without manual manipulation.

_Need to come._

Shame blushed his cheeks as he reached down into his boxers and tugged, his mind repeating images of the dream; Matt inside him, fucking him too brutal, too hard.

_“Yes Dex, fuck, yes so good…”_

Dex grunted, as a pitiful orgasm spilled come onto the bed covers.

“What the hell is wrong with me?”

No answer was forthcoming. No Nadeem staring at him with sorrowed large brown eyes, or jubilant ethereal Fisk.

With shaky legs, Dex rose from the bed and stripped out of his boxers.

Who the hell masturbated to a fantasy from a nightmare of being raped?

Then there was the fact he had the nightmare to begin with. What did it even mean?

“It means there is something really wrong with me. But then, what’s new?” Dex tore the covers off the cot and threw them into the laundry basket.

Grabbing new covers from the laundered pile next to the basket and throwing them onto the bed, Dex sat down on the edge, placing his head in his hands.

“You’ll be okay,” he told himself. “It will all be okay.”

He suspected he didn’t believe himself.

*

Dex only managed patches of sleep the rest of the night, his mind fearful of itself, of what other sinister dreams would bring forth from his consciousness. Though he woke foggy and still half conscious, he made a vow to take control back of his life.

Shower. Wash hair.

Dress. Comb hair.

Make bed.

Breakfast in room. Toast. Jam. Black coffee.

Brush teeth. Ten seconds on each tooth.

Gym. Enquire about Hasani’s whereabouts.

When Dex strode up to the open cell door, the four men playing cards froze in identical positions (the man on the right held a flush, Hasani was bluffing), with their mouths gaping. It was clear it wasn’t every day the bodyguard of their nemesis walked into their terrain.

“I’m here to talk to Hasani. Alone,” Dex said.

Hasani nodded at Max beside him, who stood.

“Arms out. Sorry about this.”

Dex attempted to stay as still as possible as he was searched. He still flinched as Max frisked the more intimate areas for weapons. Though necessary, it didn’t make the procedure any less invasive.

“Clean,” Max said.

Hasani stood up, and the other two men followed.

“So, Fisk has sent his bitch to reason with us? Interesting.”

“I’ve come here alone,” Dex said.

“I wouldn’t have taken you for an idiot,” Hasani said. “But…maybe we can come to an agreement of sorts,” his eyes flicked up and down Dex’s body and he took a step forward. Dex clenched his jaw. “Go,” he ordered his men.

“I don’t think, sir that-“ Max began.

 “I said go!”

The three other men left the cell, with Max attempting to catch Dex’s eyes. Dex determinedly looked forward.

“So, I was-“ Dex was cut off by the two strong arms that spun him around and sent him face first into the wall opposite.

Hasani’s weight pressed against him, half erection, which was growing, poking into his thigh. Dex gasped as remnants of the dream returned. A weight against his lower legs, breath drifting across his ear.

“I know what you want,” Hasani said, grabbing his pants and underwear and shoving them down.

Raped again? At that point, it had occurred so often, he couldn’t bring himself to feel anything other than cold detachment.

During the trial, while he was still recuperating from being paralysed, at least two of the officers in the remand centre had commented on his potential sexual assault in prison, once he was inevitably found guilty.

_“You’re gonna be eating liquids for a month, by the amount of cocks you’ll take.”_

_“Pretty boy ex-FBI agent. They’re going to love you. You’ll get good at sucking cock.”_

Dex considered sending them all cards, congratulating them on their correct predictions.

_Does it appease you to know I’m even being raped in my dreams? Can’t even escape it when I sleep._

“We need something to ease the way,” Hasani said, fingers prodding at his opening.

Dex turned his head to a shelf above the toilet, upon which sat the familiar tube. Hasani reached across for the tube but Dex’s hand shot up and managed to clasp around it before the larger man. Calculating distance and speed, he rebounded the tube off the south wall, where it rebounded off the edge of the bed, shot up and-

Hasani stumbled back from him. Affixing his pants back up, Dex turned around to Hasani clutching at his throat, his face blue and swollen.

Well, that was a better throw than even Dex could have anticipated. Folding his arms, he watched, with minor intrigue, as Hasani’s facial flesh changed from blue to purple, his neck swelling, eyes bulging.

_So that’s what asphyxia looks like._

The man dropped face forward onto the floor and was still.

 _“You can’t allow him to die, Dex,”_ Nadeem knelt beside Hasani’s lax body _. “Think about your new code.”_

Of course, Nadeem was right. As always.

Grasping his shirt, Dex rolled Hasani over onto his side, exhaled loudly through his nose and gave him three sharp whacks between his shoulder blades. The tube of lube shot out of his throat and mouth, to propel across the room and land under the bed.

Hasani still wasn’t breathing.

_Great, just great._

Dex placed his hands on his chest and began doing compressions. He was up to two hundred, when the others arrived back into the room.

“Get the officers!” Dex shouted. “He’s collapsed!”

*

Zablowski took him to Fisk’s room as soon as the now breathing but still unconscious Hasani was taken to the infirmary.  The large man sat at his small dining table, a meal of salmon and vegetables before him. As Dex entered, Fisk wiped his mouth with a napkin and stood.

“Dex…” Fisk shook his head as he came forward. “I appreciate you attempting to help me by going to Hasani but it could have placed you in true danger. You could be dead now!”

“I’m not,” Dex shrugged.

“So, what happened? I hear he is in the infirmary,” Fisk said.

Dex decided it was the best policy to tell Fisk the truth, particularly as Hasani would survive to contradict any lie.

“When I went to him, he cleared the others out of the room. I was going to talk to him. He pressed me up against the wall, threatened to rape me. I managed to grab the lube off him and rebound it off the wall. It wedged in his throat.”

“In his throat?” Fisk’s lips jolted.

“He started to choke. I figured he’s more use to us alive, so I performed first aid and removed the tube. Started CPR. Managed to bring him back.”

“Well that’s…” Fisk blinked and shook his head. “I can never say you’re not an interesting man.”

“Did you miss the part where I said he was trying to _rape_ me?” Dex asked, clenching his hands into fists.

“The fact you saved his life will not go unpunished. It will be interesting what his next move will be,” Fisk said, before bursting out with deep, guttural laughter.

Dex was certain his eyebrows were disappearing into his eyes, in consternation. This was the first time Fisk had openly laughed in front of him.

“Choking him on his own lube. I do appreciate the irony there, Dex.”

Dex didn’t appreciate Fisk’s laughter at all. Once again, the kingpin’s words conjured surface affection and caring, but he displayed no ultimate concern, when it came to the specifics of Dex’s problems. Now, he was openly laughing at an attempted rape.

“Is there anything else?” Dex asked. “I want to leave.”

“Dex, I’m merely laughing at the irony of a rapist choking on his own lube.”

“Well I don’t find it funny at all! I want to leave!” Dex snapped.

The humour vanished from Fisk’s face. “Of course not, Dex. I apologise for my insolence.”

_Always apologising but never meaning it._

“ _Are you even surprised?”_ Nadeem asked.

“Please, I’m very tired.”

“Of course, you’re excused,” Fisk moved back towards his lunch but then turned back. “I would advise not going to him alone again. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

He said the words with such sincerity Dex was tempted to believe he meant them.

*

The cell phone in the cell beeped, signalling a message. Dex flicked it open.

_We need to talk. I’ll be there at ten tomorrow._

Dex closed it shut again and sat on the edge of the bed, clasping the phone so tight his fingers whitened.

*

No nightmares besmirched his mind, the rest of the night.

*

The desk and chairs were once more pushed back. This time, instead of a fighting stance, Matt stood with his arms folded, his shoulders drooped and curled inwards.

“Dex…” He exhaled, as the door slammed behind the entering man, leaving the two in privacy. “Firstly, I want to apologize for my appalling behaviour the other day. I attacked you with no justification and it was-“

Dex crossed over, cupped Matt’s chin in his hands and took his lips in a deep kiss, tongue entering Matt’s open mouth. Matt’s tongue responded with equal vigour, hands running over Dex’s cheekbones, trailing sparks of ecstasy in the soft touch, before he pulled back.

“No, Dex, this isn’t-“

Dex once more claimed his heated enticing mouth, scouring his hands over his hard torso, as he pressed him up against the table with such force it pushed back another inch. Though Matt spoke words of objection, the yearning tongue in Dex’s mouth, hands in his hair and leg around his waist suggested otherwise. Spice and coffee tantalised Dex’s tongue and piquant deodorant filled his nostrils.

“Dex! We shouldn’t-“ Matt said, as Dex brushed his lips against his neck, indulging in the rough stubble.

Finally giving in without weak protest, Matt groaned and grabbed Dex’s prison shirt, pulling him until their torsos pressed together, exchanging fiery heat between them.

Yes, this was what he wanted, wasn’t it?

Matt’s hands were warm and rough as they groped at Dex’s growing erection, his own teeth nipping at Dex’s throat.

“I dreamed off you last night,” Dex whispered in his ear, slamming him down on his back on the table. Matt’s ensuing moan was as silk running through Dex’s fingers. “I dreamed you were fucking me. Right here in this room. You were fucking me so hard I-“

“Dex, no we shouldn’t-“ Matt’s body again spoke the opposite to his words, as his groin rubbed against Dex’s.

_Yes, we should. I need this. Need you._

Dex unzipped his pants and grabbed Matt’s erection in his hands. Matt responded with a groan, tearing down Dex’s own prison pants and gripping his own erection.

Another man’s erection in his hand. The last time had been with Fletcher.

_Stroke stroke stroke._

_Just get it over with, make him come quick._

“It’s good. You’re good,” Fletcher had said, kissing his neck.

“I came,” Dex whispered in his ear, breath quickening as he jolted in Matt’s hand. “I woke up hard. The first time since I was raped, I woke up-“

“No!” Matt screamed, pushing him so hard he stumbled back against the door opposite. “Damn it!”  Matt sat up and thumped the table, as he pulled up his trousers and zipped them, covering his erection.

“You’re still hard. I can-“ Dex began.

“Please stop talking,” Matt said, then let out a strangled cry and thumped the table again.

Dex pulled up his pants, his erection wilting at the sight of Matt’s frustration.

“This is wrong,” Matt whispered. “This is so wrong I don’t even know where to start.”

Dex’s stomach tensioned.

“Please, Matt. I know I’m-“

“Sh… let me speak,” Matt ran a hand through his hair. “This is the last time I’ll come here-“

_No no no! You can’t! You can’t!_

“So that’s it? You’re just like all the others! Fuck Dex, I’ll leave when it gets too hard! No, this time you won’t!” He once again crossed the distance between them, pushing Matt back down onto the desk and holding his arms down with his hands. “I won’t let you.”

Matt twisted his body to the left and kicked Dex back, easily dislodging him, before standing.

“This is why I can’t visit any more. It’s gone too far! I’m sorry I attacked you. I really am. I’ve been pretty messed up in the head of late-“

“Please don’t leave… please…” Dex tried another tact, sinking to his knees. He shuffled forward, groping at Matt’s crotch.

“Dex, no…” Matt pushed his hands away, gripped him under his shoulders and pulled him up.

“Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it. I’ll want it this time. I want you,” Dex said, stroking his hands along his chest.

“Dex…” Matt grabbed his hands to hold them still.

“You want me. You wanna fuck me.”

“I’m no longer going to deny there isn’t an attraction from my side…” Matt admitted. “But we can’t…There are so many things wrong with this! You killed Father Lantom! As well as half a dozen other people!”

“You keep going back to that!” Dex shook himself free of Matt’s hold.

“It’s a pretty big thing to go back to so yes, I’m going back to it!” A light pink graced Matt’s cheeks.

“I’m in prison for it! Justice has been served.”

“Justice can never be served for what you’ve done!” The pink now deepened to red, his brown eyes also darkening to almost eclipse the black of his dilated pupils.

“What do you want to do to me?” Dex said, holding his arms out. “Beat me? Rape me? What will assuage your fury?”

Matt’s face now drained of all colour, to chalky white, his ribcage slamming up and down with the force of his breaths.

“Come on, Matt. Tell me!” Dex demanded.

“I want to beat the shit out of you! I fantasized taking a knife and stabbing you over and over again!” Matt shouted.

“Do it! Beat me! I won’t fight it. Leave me in a pool of blood. Keep going until I’m no more. It will be a relief, believe me.” What did it matter, anyway? Who was he? No one. Nothing.

Matt roared, his fist slamming into Dex’s ribs. Exquisite pain exploded through his abdomen and he bent over, only to be knocked back by an uppercut to his jaw.

“Why did you do it? Why?” Matt screamed. “Fisk isn’t to blame, you are! You took a lethal fight to a church! What is wrong with you?”

“I don’t know! I’m sorry, Matt. I don’t know why I’m so fucked up.”

_I don’t know what’s real anymore. I don’t even know if I’m real._

Tears poured down Matt’s cheeks and he roared once more turned and kicked the table so hard it once more slammed into the wall, causing a dent in its wake.

“I’m sorry I’m such a fuck up,” Dex said. “Please, Matt…”

As though an electrical current had been switched off, Matt stopped in his ferocious movements, and instead grabbed a chair, pulled it forward and slumped into it.

 “Can’t you see now, Dex?” Matt asked. “Can’t you see why this situation is so messed up? I understand you want to make amends. But when I think back to what you did, I become so enraged.”

Dex’s mind went back to his physiotherapist.

“I can’t control how you feel, Matt. I can only control what _I_ do. I’ve done terrible things. I can only move forward, make amends. If Karen wants me to talk to the victims of those I killed, I’ll do it.” _Not broken. You’re not broken, Dex. You just need someone to guide you._

 “I messed up again,” Matt whispered.

“Please don’t leave me Matt,” Dex begged. “Please. You said Father Lantom would want you to help me. You say me being in here will never be justice enough. I was paralysed. Beaten. Raped repeatedly. If punishment is what you-“

The disgust contorting Matt’s features ceased his line of conversation.

“No, those aren’t my morals. I’m so sorry, Dex. My behaviour has been unconscionable. I can’t change your past. But I can change my behaviour.”

“I want you to stay. You’ve been good for me. I can use you as a guiding force.”

An ironic smile uplifted Matt’s lips, though sorrow still filtered through his brown irises.

“Not a good idea.”

“Why not?” Dex demanded. “There’s a darkness to you, I’m not denying it. I can’t let go of my own. But you’re so good. So morally righteous. I need that.”

“I can’t keep it together! Please don’t use me as your North Star.”

Dex knelt before him and cupped his chin.

“Don’t,” Matt said, gripping his wrists to pull them down so Dex instead grabbed his hands.

“That’s precisely why you’re perfect for my moral guidance. You’re the best version of me I could attain.”

“I keep acting so terribly towards you! I’m surprised you’re even-“

Dex interrupted his sentence by brushing his lips against Matt’s. Matt moaned, his hands tender in Dex’s hair, their tongues gently entangling. Dex wrapped his arm around Matt’s back and pulled him closer, Matt’s heart pounding in time with his own.

They pulled away naturally.

“Dex, the last thing I want to do is take advantage, sexually. You’ve been horrifically abused. It makes sense for you to be a bit sexually confused right now,” Matt said.

“You’re the first man since was raped who I consensually want to be with.”

It took Dex a moment to understand that the repulsion distorting Matt’s features was for the ones who had abused him, and not for himself, for being so wanton after being horrifically abused, in Matt’s own words.

“Can we slow down?” Matt asked. “You’re also the first man in a very long while I’ve been attracted to…My preference tends to be women.”

“Mine usually is too, for emotional intimacy,” Dex said, stroking Matt’s hair. “Men for physical intimacy. Although you’ve achieved a crossover there.” He paused. “You are so damned cute!” He pecked Matt’s nose.

“This is so damned wrong…” Matt shook his head.

“So you keep saying. You run around in a devil outfit beating up people. Seems to me you _enjoy_ wrong.”

“There _you’re_ not wrong,” Matt laughed. Dex laughed along with him. It felt good, natural.

“I’m sorry Dex. Again I…” He shook his head. “I keep saying everything is a mess. Things become stable and then they tear apart. Father Lantom would say that’s life. We just have to ride the roller coaster.”

Dex pulled him back into a sturdy embrace, feeling Matt’s own arms wrap around his upper back. Matt, so warm and firm and precious.

 “You smell so damned good,” Matt said.

They pulled apart once more.

“Does this mean we’re going steady?” Dex joked. “When are you going to put out? Second or third date?”

“Bit hard to go on a romantic stroll on the beach given our current circumstances…. This feels so weird,” Matt said, shaking his head. “But then, my life is constant weird.”

“Please don’t leave and decide you’re angry with me again,” Dex said. “Because honestly, this constant up and down from you is exhausting.”

A line appeared between Matt’s eyebrows. “I’m pretty ashamed of my conduct. I’m not good with self-introspection.”

“I often self-introspect. Doesn’t work if, like me, you come to the wrong conclusions. So, truce to play nice?”

Matt took his outstretched hand and shook.

“More than nice?” Dex kissed the back of his hand.

“How about we see how this goes?” Matt said. “Neither of us are up to rushing into a sexual relationship right now. Besides, that would be difficult, given the circumstances.”

Dex kissed his lips. “I’m sure we can be creative. So, let me understand this. You want to fuck me but you don’t want to take me over the table right now?”

“I want everything to calm down, for us both to have more structure in our lives, including you being safe from further abuse, and to hopefully receive therapy for the abuse you’ve suffered.”

“Okay,” Dex said. “We can build up to great sex.”

“I need you to feel safe. Even with me. This isn’t the right time for us to be rushing into anything.”

“Okay,” Dex indulged in his mouth once more. “I can accept those terms. Besides, you’ll go home away from me and question everything we’ve just said. Maybe that’s right. Maybe you should.”

“Maybe,” Matt agreed. “But I’ll still come back, won’t I?”

*

The text arrived as soon as Dex re-entered his cell an hour later, after a surprising attack-free work out at the gym. With a trembling hand, he opened the cell phone to read.

_I’m home now. And I’ll be back whenever you want me to be._

Grinning, Dex sent a reply.

_The sooner the better._

Tbc…


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks to all who are reading.  
> Usual violence in this chapter with some rough sex thrown in. ;)

“Well, hello there!” Dex grinned as he tapped on Deakin’s open office door. “Unless I’ve traversed space-time, now is the time for my appointment.”

Deakin spun around in his chair, revealing Dex’s open file on the laptop behind him.

“That would be some feat, Ben,” Deakin grinned back at him.

“Could be achievable,” Dex said, stepping into the room. “I just need to find a rip in the fabric of the universe.”

“Just that, huh? You’re in a good mood,” Deakin observed.

Good mood? Fantastic mood was more an apt description. Dex could still taste Matt’s tongue, touch the warmth of his body, smell the sweat of his flesh.

“Is that a new bow?” Dex pointed at the yellow and blue striped attire hanging around the physiotherapist’s neck.

“Birthday present. Forgot to take it off,” Deakin pulled the bow off and placed it on the desk beside the laptop.

“Suits you. Unfortunately, this exact shade of grey on me isn’t conducive to an aesthetic fashion sense,” Deakin ran a hand down his own prison top and then through his hair. “I need a haircut.”

“You’re healing has been phenomenal,” Deakin said, swivelling back to the laptop. “I was just going through your notes. Today we’ll slow down. I’d like to try incorporating yoga practice in today’s session.”

Slow down? Sure. Slow meant steady, reassuring.

Matt spoke of slowing down.

Yes, Dex appreciated the attempt to slow down in all areas of his life.

“Yoga is also beneficial for calming the mind. You’ve been under a fair amount of stress, of late,” Deakin said. “I hope to give you tools to focus.”

“That sounds fantastic,” Dex couldn’t stop smiling. It was as though the corner of his lips were superglued up towards the tip of his ears.

“Well,” Deakin clicked out of his folder. “Should we begin?”

He followed Deakin through the second doorway, that stood to the right of the physiotherapist’s office desk, into the main physiotherapy room.

“So,” Deakin walked past the massage table and treadmill to the south wall, where rows of medicine balls sat. He then took two yoga mats off the stand and laid them side by side in the centre of the floor. “We’ll start by-“

The pandemonium was instantaneous, as though a chaos bomb had exploded in the centre of the prison. One moment, stillness and quiet permeated the room, the next, panicked shouts and screams reached their ears from outside the door, followed by rushing footsteps. The scent of smoke entered Dex’s nose.

“What’s happening?” Deakin asked, his voice trembling.

Dex’s brain flashed with one word- emergency. As the physiotherapist’s pallor blanched to a sickening grey, Dex’s brain calmed, heart quickening, blood pumping to his muscles, readying him for action. Gun shots sounded, closer to the room. Dex estimated the perp to be at most twenty feet away in a southern direction and moving closer. They would enter the space at any second.

“Oh no!” Deakin sprinted towards the open door.

_No! Don’t go forward!_

Dex grasped him around the waist and threw him to a sprawled position on the ground.

“Stay down!” He ordered, seizing the massage bed, as three prisoners and one officer entered the room. Ignoring Deakin’s cry of pure terror, Dex flipped the bed on its side and crashed it to the floor, covering the physiotherapist and himself, as a bullet slammed into the other side. “Keep down!”

As another bullet hit the table, Deakin reached behind himself, grasped one of the medicine balls, aimed, and rebounded it around the bed and then off the west wall, aware, without visual confirmation, that it had then taken out one of the men entering, by colliding with his frontal lobe.

“Remember we want the bitch alive!” a voice shouted.

Dex was under no illusions. They were referring to him.

Risking shuffling back once more, as Deakin curled into a ball and sobbed, Dex picked up two medicine balls and aimed, as more footsteps pounded into the room. Grunts and screams reached his tympanics as the balls connected with skulls hard enough to cause unconsciousness but it wasn’t enough. He needed to get to the one holding the gun. Risking lifting his head over the makeshift barrier, he calculated the movement of the gunman, bearing down from the left of the door. Tearing the leg off the bed, he curved the throw around the bulky furniture. A sharp scream sounded and Dex again risked glancing up over his makeshift barrier. The gunman lay on his back, with the bed leg sticking up out of his upper chest.

_Sorry, Matt. I had to. He had a gun and was going to kill me and Deakin._

Another was taking the weapon off the downed officer. Dex tore another leg off the bed and made certain this throw wasn’t lethal. It slammed into the prisoner’s stomach and lodged deep enough to down him but not kill.

Dex’s military training dictated they needed to move and not get trapped in the one area. A small gap had opened up, from where the smarter prisoners had backed off.

“Okay, on three, we move!” He ordered Deakin. “One. Two. Three.”

Deakin was still curled up into a ball, a litany of prayer issuing from his lips. Dex lifted the massage table and threw it at the men converging into the room, knocking four of them with such force it drove them back, as he grasped Deakin under the shoulders and pulled him up, sprinting forward and grabbing whatever he could as he went, to chuck projectiles at the men and drive them back; medical equipment, and then the stationary and even bits of furniture of the office. The room and ensuing hall was soon littered with men bearing various office supplies in their legs, arms and abdomen.

_But not fatal. See, Matt. I’ve been a good boy._

“Keep moving,” he ordered, as the gun once more went off in front of them, ricocheting off the wall and grazing Deakin’s ear. He was aware it was a warning shot. Even so, he continued to sprint towards the man, as Deakin screamed and cowered behind Dex’s back. A well-placed kick to the gunman’s head knocked him out and Dex relieved him of the weapon.

“That’s three. A glock of this calibre holds fifteen rounds. Twelve left at most,” Deakin said, holding the gun steady in one hand, while dragging the moaning Deakin with the other. Smoke issued through the now eerie deserted corridor.

“My colleagues…” Deakin whimpered.

Dex glanced into the room opposite. Through the blackening smoke, he observed a woman lying on the ground and not moving. “We need to keep moving.”

Deakin coughed and spluttered.

“It’s too smoky. We need to go back.”

No, Dex disagreed. There was protection in the lack of visibility.

‘Here,” he said, tearing off his shirt. “Hold this against your mouth and face. I’ll guide you.”

It was odd to recall that merely two hours before, he had been conversing with Matt. Laughing.

Kissing.

“ _You’ll get through this_ ,” Dex welcomed Nadeem’s presence materialising beside them.

They turned right, left and right again, as the smoke thickened, stinging his eyes. Pounding footsteps resonated behind them and Dex shoved Deakin into a nearby room.

A voice roared and Deakin was snatched from Dex’s hands. He aimed the weapon and fired and the would-be kidnapper fell back, as the bullet lodged in his shoulder.

_Eleven rounds left._

The rushing footsteps now were coming from all directions.

“Get down under the desk and stay there! The smoke will rise,” Dex ordered.

“Ben-“

“It’s okay! You’ll be safe in here.”

Deakin hastened to cower under the desk and Dex continued out of the room, closing the door behind himself. He had to get to Fisk, but of more importance was to find an ally.

As he continued down the corridor, then down another, the men converged on him at once. Dozens, hundreds. After using the rest of the bullets up in non-lethal hits, he resorted to hand-to hand combat, which drove himself away from the clearing smoke.

What was happening? Where was Fisk?

Breaking free of the rioting prisoners, for the time being, Dex ran back towards Deakin. A hand shot out and covered his mouth, another pinning his arms to his side, as he was pressed against a warm torso and dragged into the now empty office of Doctor Oyama. He steadied himself to fight, when a familiar voice whispered.

“It’s okay, it’s me,” the voice said, releasing him from his tight hold.

Zablowski.

“What’s happening?” Dex asked.

Shuffling spun him around with the gun raised, to Max appearing out of the darkened shadows.

“Looks like a riot wouldn’t you say?” Max said.

“Fisk has made a deal with the Albanians. Seems all three groups have put their old grievances aside,” Zablowski said.

“Fisk has also turned most of the officers, including the warden,” Max said.

Dex’s synapses zapped with fresh cognizance. “You’re undercover.”

_Why didn’t I put this together earlier? It’s obvious!_

“I’ve been working the Albanians for the past year. We need to get you to a safe house. It’s no longer safe for you here in this prison,” Max said.

“ _Deakin_ ,” Nadeem urged him.

“You need to find my physiotherapist, Deakin. He’s in trouble,” Dex said.

“Listen to me!” A flinch rippled through Dex’s frame, as Max’s gripped him by his shoulders. “Hasani made a deal with Fisk. The deal was for _you_. I was there when they made it. He gives Fisk transport out of here to his own safehouse. In return, among other things, he wanted you. Wanted to, in his own words ‘fuck the famous church spree killer.’ Charming, right? Fisk agreed. But he told him to kill you once he was finished.”

Dex swallowed down a wad of hurt, that rose up in his oesophagus. Being threatened with rape did not anguish him as much as the reveal of Fisk’s betrayal. Although Dex was aware of Fisk’s constant manipulation, he was surprised at the power of which each fresh bout of treachery slammed into him, with the precision of his own throws.

 _“Hurt later,”_ Nadeem said. _“Survive now.”_

“We make sure my physiotherapist is safe. I can take care of myself,” Dex said, forcing his clenched throat to vibrate, to make words.

Max and Zablowski caught eyes.

“Let’s do it,” Max said.

This time, with two others with him, one of them an officer with another gun, they managed to make it back to the room bearing Deakin with little trouble. Dex only had to use both his fists and feet, as well as any item he could use, including the glock, to propel in the vicinity and take out a dozen prisoners, while Zablowski shot two. Lethal shots.

The three men reached the room in which he had placed Deakin and threw the door open.

“Deakin it’s okay! We’ll get you out!” Dex said.

Another prisoner rushed up towards him. He grabbed the baton from Zablowski’s holster and threw it, striking the prisoner in the head and causing him to fall down and not get up again. As he picked up the baton, more prisoners piled in from either side of the corridor. Dex ploughed his way through them, using both the throws of the baton as well as his arms, elbows, fists, legs and feet, to deliberately lead them away from the room. To his relief, they followed him. More men rushed him.

Dex had always wondered what amount of men would be enough to down him. That day, he achieved the answer. Using a combination of his environment, the glock, and his own body, he arrived at seventy-eight, when a lucky strike to the back of his head slammed him to the ground. As darkness overtook, he hoped Deakin, Zablowski and Max were able to get out.

*

The drone of an engine. Whispered voices.

Dex opened his eyelids, to two blurred figures seated opposite. An amalgamation of pink and white focused to Fisk’s form.

“So, you’ve returned to us.”

“No…” Dex said, looking around himself, with frantic need for an escape route. His heart pounded so hard it was about to charge straight out of his ribcage. He was in the back of a car, possibly a limousine. The windows were tinted, displaying his own chalky visage back to him. Someone had redressed him. He now wore a white shirt and black trousers. A quick scan of his body indicated no new injuries, for now, no signs of molestation.

Hasani sat beside Fisk, displaying every tooth in his smile.

“Dex, it’s okay,” Fisk said.

“No, no no…”

“I know you’re disorientated-“ Fisk continued.

Dex kicked at the door. He didn’t care how fast the car was going. Didn’t matter. He had to get out of there.

“Dex calm down! We’re not going to hurt you!” Fisk insisted.

Sure they weren’t. Max’s promise of rape and murder was more in Fisk’s style than a handshake and promised invite to a Christmas lunch.

He kicked once more, the back door shuddering in its frame.

“Frisky one, isn’t he?” Hasani asked, pink tongue swiping his lips.

“Dex! Stop this!” Fisk ordered

Dex kicked once more and the door flung open.

Without considering the consequences, he flung himself out of the moving vehicle.

*

As soon as he opened the window, the scent of stir fry aroused his nostrils. When was the last time he’d eaten?  Of course, Matt would sense he was there. Rather than jimmy the window, he should have knocked on the front door.

Sure enough, as soon as he jumped down onto the floorboards of the tidy bedroom, Matt entered through the open doorway.

“Dex…” Rather than expected shock at seeing him, Matt’s expression was guarded.

“Surprise!” He said.

Matt raced over and placed his arm around his shoulder.

“On the news, they’re talking about the prison riot,” Matt said, as he walked him out of the room. “They were saying you were dead. As well as Fisk. Of course, I knew that couldn’t be true. You’d better come into the lounge and tell me what’s going on.”

Of course, Dex would oblige. But where to even begin?

After exiting Fisk’s vehicle, which did turn out to be a limousine, he had fallen down a sharp incline. Excruciating pain followed, as his femur snapped, followed by a fresh jolt of agony, as his humerus followed. When the occipital lobe of his skull shattered, he started to blank out, convinced that he was dying. Except, rather than lying in a muddled heap at the bottom of the valley, Dex came to and was able to move, the bones and lacerations knitting together causing itching all over his bruised form but no pain. He now only bore a few bruises and scrapes.

Doctor Oyama. Had to be. What had he done to him?

Obeying Matt’s gestures, Dex sat on the lounge’s leather couch, before Matt followed suite beside him.

“Fisk made a deal with the Albanians,” Dex said. “They’ve taken him to a safe house. I don’t know where. There was a riot. I got knocked out. Came to in Fisk’s limousine. Matt, do we know who died?”

Matt swallowed. “A lot of people died.”

“I didn’t kill… only one. A prison officer. He had a weapon. Was firing at my physiotherapist. I need to know if he survived. And the other officer. Zablowski. There was a third man. Turned out to be undercover. I suspect police. I only knew him as Max.”

“I don’t know, Dex. I’m sorry,” Matt’s brows knitted and his lips pursed.

“Karen would know, wouldn’t she? I need to know they’re okay!”

“Dex… it’s okay…” Matt clasped a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Breathe.”

“I was with my physiotherapist, Deakin when the riot broke out. I tried to protect him. Zablowski and Max said they’d get him out. I diverted the prisoners away from them. Fisk, he betrayed me.... again!” Dex ran a hand through his hair and then down his torn shirt and then through his hair again.

_Focus, Dex._

“He tends to do that,” Matt said.

“He made a deal with this insidious man called Hasani. Max told me. Hasani would help get Fisk out, in exchange for me. Popular, aren’t I?” He wasn’t sure why his mouth was determined to grin. “When I was in the jail, a few of the officers called me ‘pretty boy’, said I’d be someone’s bitch. How right they were.”

“Rape has nothing to do with attraction,” Matt said. “They wanted to humiliate and shame another human being, wanted to hurt you, the most vicious way they could.”

“Plenty of people will believe what happened to me is justified. Karma.”

The sweaty wide face of one of the guards in the jail appeared in his mind, leering at him through the bars of his cell.

_“You’re gonna be some group’s bitch. Gonna get sold for cigarettes. Five dollars for anal, three for oral,” snorted laughter._

“Dex, no. No one deserves to be sexually assaulted. No one.”

No, Dex was not going to consider the conundrums of his recent abused past. Too much had happened in the past day and adding the ethics of his recent rapes was apt to fizzle his brain to a muddled goo.

“I came to in the limousine. Fisk and Hasani were there. I panicked. Kicked out the door and risked jumping out of the moving vehicle. Dumb move, I know, but it was either that or allow Hasani to rape and kill me.”

“Are you hurt?” Matt asked.

“Whatever Doctor Oyama did to me has produced ridiculous healing. I should be severely injured, at the very least. But I only have a few cuts and bruises. I swear it was as though every bone in my body fractured. I should be dead right now! Zablowski and Max talked about getting me to a safe house. The prison is compromised. Fisk has turned most of the officers as well as the warden. How did he do it?” He shook his head.

“You know how he does it, how he gets to people, worms his way in,” Matt said.

“He won’t think to look here,’ Dex said. “He thinks I’m smart. And a smart man wouldn’t go to the most obvious place to hide out.”

“You weren’t followed?”

“I know how to evade detection,” Dex said.

Matt cocked his head, silent for a full minute. “There’s no talk about me or Daredevil, apart from the talk about the prison. No one knows you came here. Zablowski got out. So, did Deakin. They’re in the hospital, shaken but otherwise okay. There’s talk about your undercover cop. He also got out.”

“Oh, thank god,” Dex released a shuddered breath.

“Sounds like you had one hell of an afternoon. Tell you what,” Matt patted his thigh. “I was making dinner. Stir fry. You go take a shower. I’ll get you a change of clothes.”

Dex looked down at his torn white shirt and black pants.

“I’m sorry I came here. It’s the only place I could think of to go to.”

The brief touch of the back of Matt’s fingers to his right cheek tingled the flesh for the next half an hour.

“Shower,” Matt ordered.

*

Dex was as proficient in the shower as he was in all other aspects of his life. Matt’s soap was utilitarian white soap, his shampoo and conditioner a disappointing cheap brand. He took the time to examine himself, amazed at the full motion of his muscles, the straight lines of the bones. Whole. Together. Uninjured.

_How am I not dead right now? I felt the crack of my skull fracturing!_

_“Don’t question it,”_ Nadeem said. _“Just be grateful you’re alive.”_

Once clean, he stepped out, dried himself and went through Matt’s medicine cabinet, dressing the minor lacerations on his torso and limbs, before dressing into the baggy shirt and pants Matt had left him outside the door. Now sufficiently refreshed and human, he walked down the hall and into the dining room, where Matt was setting out two plates.

“I’m so sorry for all this inconvenience. You obviously weren’t expecting-“

Matt gestured to the nearest chair. “Eat up!” He pulled out his own chair opposite and sat down.

Dex obeyed and dug into the sautéed vegetables. They were tasty; the right combination of sweet and sour. For a full minute, both men ate in silence.

“You can stay here a couple of days,” Matt said, placing his fork on the table. “But beyond that will be dangerous for the both of us. Tomorrow, I’ll call Karen and Foggy-“

“No, Matt, don’t do that.”

“And why not?” The downturn of Matt’s lip always occurred when he was holding in going supernova on Dex. “They are my best friends. They have a right to know what’s happening.”

“I don’t want your friends to hate you because of me. I’ve already ruined countless relationships. I don’t want to ruin another. I don’t have to stay. In fact, I’ll leave. That way you won’t risk your friendship.”

" _Not to mention his life_ ,” Nadeem said.

“Not going to happen. Ever,” Matt said. “They’ve put up with so much from me and yet have stayed…”

A pained spasm jolted his features. Automatically, Dex leaned across the table and patted his hand.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You deserve to have good people in your life.”

Matt stared down at the broad hand covering his own.

“I’m no longer hungry. I’ll start the dishes.”

He took his plate and scooted his chair back. As he walked away from him, Dex admired the curve of his ass, enhanced by the tight jeans, darting his tongue along his lips. Matt was correct. The day had been horrendous. However, it didn’t have to end in a terrible fashion.

“ _Don’t do it,”_ Nadeem warned.

Ignoring the phantom, Dex scooted his chair back, followed Matt to the kitchen and grabbed him by the shoulder, spinning him around to meet his lips. Matt responded to the kiss with hungry appropriation, gripping Dex’s hair and wrapping his hand around his back, pushing their bodies together.

“I’m glad you’re alright,” Matt’s fingers, trailing along his jaw, sparked bliss that yearned for more. “Also, that you didn’t kill anyone.”

“No, I did kill one. I seriously injured dozens of men. But then, you also have a habit of doing that in your nightly travails.”

Matt pecked his lips. “Continue your dinner.”

“I’m not hungry either,” Dex said, moving to the dining room and picking up his plate. “How about I wash and you dry?”

“Put them in the sink,” Matt said. “I’ll worry about them tomorrow.”

“Matt! That is utterly unhygienic!”

Matt shrugged. “We have other things to deal with right now, haven’t you noticed?”

“You’re right. Of course.”

“Tonight, you can sleep in my bed. I’ll take the couch.”

“How about we share a bed?” Dex said, strolling over to stroke Matt’s hair.

Matt grasped his hand and pulled it down.

“No, it wouldn’t be right.”

*

Dex rolled over and groaned. How was he meant to sleep with a large neon sign glowing straight into the bedroom, wishing to burn a hole through his eyeballs into his brain?

After more circular conversation as to what they should do and where he should go, they decided to retire to bed. Alone. In different rooms. Dex buried his face in Matt’s pillow, inhaling his salty scent. How many times had Matt fucked on this bed? How many _men_ had Matt fucked on this bed or been fucked by? Dex reached into his pants and tugged at his half-erection. In his mind, Matt lustily thrusted into a man on his hands and knees. No, not any man. Himself.

_Well well, this is interesting._

Clambering out of the bed, with his erection aching and now at attention, Dex strolled to the ensuite opposite, going through the cabinet, and locating Vaseline, before retiring back to the bed.

One lubed finger became two became three, as his other hand continued to stroke.

_Matt was inside him, his hand over his mouth, roughly thrusting._

_“Take it, take it!”_

 The Matt in the other room would sense his heightened stimulation; the frantic pulse of his heart, the slap of the tug of his right hand.

_Damn it!_

Why was he using his own hand when the real flesh and blood man was metres away?

Pulling off the rest of his clothes, Dex padded through the door and into the lounge. Matt had pulled the blankets aside and sat on the sofa with his legs crossed. Waiting.

_Of course, he knows._

“Go back to bed, Dex.”

_Is that what you want?_

Dex pounced onto him, driving him back onto the couch, as he forced their mouths together, ceasing any further protests from Matt’s tongue, which now entangled with his own.

_Too easy._

Without much effort, between them, they stripped Matt naked, their hands and mouths taking delight in each other’s flesh.

Needing more, Dex held Matt’s hands by the wrists down onto the couch, positioned himself and sank down onto Matt’s erection. Instant burning pain pulsated up his insides, despite the use of earlier Vaseline as lube. Matt’s groan of ecstasy forced him to move, to thrust up and down in quick jolts, causing Matt to press up against the sweet spot inside him that added his own ecstasy to the scorching sensation.

_No. Stop. No. Please._

This was too much, too soon. His brain wasn’t prepared, was replaying images and sounds of other couplings, forced couplings.

_Slap slap slap slap._

_“You like this?” Fletcher whispered into his ear. “You want it harder?”_

_Dex responded by pressing his face harder into the pillow._

Matt twisted out of Dex’s hold and grasped him by the waist, twisting and flipping him so he was now on his back, with his lover thrusting into him from above.

“Fuck me harder,” Dex ordered.

_“… gonna be someone’s bitch…”_

Matt complied, increasing the combined ecstasy and sharp sting of his erection filling Dex’s insides.

Slapslapslapslap.

_A hand clamped over his mouth. Terry‘s weight pressing onto him. More saliva and blood and semen desecrating his body._

Dex grasped Matt’s hand and placed it over his mouth. Matt instead covered his mouth with his own, his torso heavy, scalding on top of his, burning as the neon light had pained his eyes. Dex’s tongue responded, his hands wrapped around Matt’s back. Perfunctory movements. His body consented, while his mind screeched to push Matt off, betrayed by his physical positive reaction to Matt’s attentions.

Sex. Rape. Assault, what was the difference any more?

 Matt released from his mouth and kissed down his neck, his hand stroking Dex’s erection.

A large spider’s web stretched across one wood beam to another. Matt needed to take better care of this place.

“Harder!” Dex ordered. His voice sounded distant from himself, a radio playing in another room.

_No, this isn’t assault. You are consenting to this._

Matt flung his head back and cried out, familiar warmth flooding inside him. Three more tugs of Dex’s erection and he was coming himself, roaring, mind obliterated with pleasure, before he returned to his physicality with a jolt. Matt had slumped on top of him, too heavy. Wriggling out from under him, Dex stood up to gather his clothes, his often-besieged brain eerie in its current tranquillity.

“Where are you going?” Matt asked.

“Back to bed.”

“We need to talk about what just happened,” Matt said, patting the space next to himself.

 “What just happened is you fucked me.”

Matt’s semen slid down his inner thigh. Now the compunction to be ravished was over, to be replaced by the need to shower and scrub himself of Matt’s fluids. The ever-present shame magnified in his system. Why did he allow this to go so far? Matt had been correct. His body wasn’t ready for intimacy so soon after being sexually assaulted and yet he’d charged straight forward.

So had Matt.

No, not entirely true. Matt had protested- albeit weakly- but he still succumbed to Dex’s seductions.

Dex slunk back to Matt and slid in beside him, cupping his jaw. “Next time, I want to be inside you.”

Matt gripped his wrists and pulled his arms down.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay. A bit sore.”

“Dex…I’m sorry,” Matt’s dark irises, as ever, glittered with fraught emotion. “This is my fault. I keep giving into you and now…”

“And now what? We just had sex. So, what’s the problem?”

“The problem is you’re still dealing with being sexually assaulted! The problem is you have just escaped from prison and I, a lawyer, am harbouring you! The problem is we are still trying to establish boundaries with each other, which we keep stampeding straight over!”

Dex grabbed Matt’s hand, rubbing the cold flesh.

“Why did you come in here, Dex?” Matt asked.

“I wanted you. It’s simple.”

Matt placed another hand over Dex’s.

“I didn’t want it to be like that.”

“What did you want? Flowers? A dinner followed by copious foreplay? You enjoyed yourself, didn’t you?”

Matt wrapped his other hand in Dex’s hair, at the back of his neck. “Did you?”

“Stop acting so guilty. I wanted you. This wasn’t anything I didn’t yearn for,” Dex leaned over and kissed his lips. “And stop saying we’re so messed up.”

“We are!”

“ _Let’s face it, Dex. He’s right,”_ Nadeem said.

Too fatigued to mentally argue with a sprite, Dex pulled Matt down and snuggled up against him, tugging the blanket over themselves.

_Damn, he’s warm._

“So, you’re sleeping here tonight, now are you?” Matt teased, running a light hand up and down his bare back.

Dex couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept in a bed with another person. Fletcher would kick him out of the bed as soon as the brutality was over, depriving him of even the smallest of human comfort.

“You make a very comfortable human pillow,” Dex admitted, to Matt’s gruff laughter.

Though he wished to prolong the comfort of the sensual man’s naked torso against his own, within minutes, he succumbed to the allure of deep sleep.

*

Matt trudged into the dining room an hour after Dex had awoken. In that time, Dex had dressed, washed and dried the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, made coffee and was serving pancakes onto a plate, forging temptation to stay on the lounge chair and continue to stroke and kiss Matt’s sleeping face.

“Good morning,” Dex stomped over, cupped his jaw and kissed his lips, before handing him a small plate. “Help yourself to pancakes. I found maple syrup and honey in your cupboards.”

“Smells good,” Matt said, taking a seat. “How are you feeling this morning?”

“Fine, good in fact!” Dex said, placing a larger plate of pancakes onto the dining table.

“Well, I just called Foggy and Karen and they’re on their way over.”

Dex pressed his lips together as he sat opposite Matt, watching him pick up pancakes and place them onto his own smaller plate.

“I haven’t told them you’re here, only that they need to come,” Matt said.

_If it’s important to you, then of course._

“Good, we can work out between us what we’re going to do.”

“I can already tell what they’ll say,” Matt frowned. “Send you back to that compromised prison. Foggy will be furious. Karen will be angry but open to compromise.”

Dex pushed back his chair came over and kissed his lips once more. “Thank you for everything. I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”

“I can’t promise everything will be okay, but whatever happens, we’ll work it out. That I can promise,” Matt said.

Dex kissed his lips once more and returned to his chair, his heart soothed by Matt’s words.

Tbc….


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks to my lovely readers. :)  
> Enjoy!

Matt was putting away the last breakfast dish in the cupboard above his head, when the trill of the doorbell vibrated their eardrums.

“Right on time,” he said, closing the cupboard door.

“Maybe I should go into the bedroom,” Dex suggested, throwing the paper towel he’d been using to wipe the bench into the nearby bin. “Let you talk to them first.”

A twisted smile graced Matt’s lips. “Come on, Dex. Let’s get this over with.”

As Dex followed him through the kitchen and dining into the lounge room, gentle fingers grasped his shoulder, and Dex stepped back closer to the kitchen. Matt continued across the lounge and opened the front door.

“ _They don’t like you. This won’t go well,”_ Nadeem said.

_You truly are the king of stating the obvious._

Foggy ambled into the foyer first, in his usual casual fashion, accepting the brief hug from Matt, followed by the more poised Karen.

“So, what’s-?” Foggy began, as Matt hugged Karen, his blue eyes searching the room before settling on Dex.

“ _Here we go_ ,” Nadeem said, as Karen and Foggy now both displayed identical open-mouthed expressions.

“Matt, what the hell is he doing here?” Foggy asked. “Why are you harbouring a fugitive?”

“Fisk has joined forces with the Albanians, has turned most of the officers and even the warden of the prison,” Matt explained. “He’s escaped, with help from the Albanians and prison officers. Dex came here after he was kidnapped by and almost killed by Fisk.”

Foggy bit his bottom lip, conveying a multitude of emotions in his glance at Dex, not all of them negative.

“We need to talk,” he grasped Matt’s elbow. “In private.”

“Foggy…” Matt made a limited attempt at protest, as his friend dragged him out of the lounge and down the corridor, out of the range of Dex’s hearing.

“Why are you here?” Karen asked, the tremble of her body proof of her failing attempt to control her anger.

“It’s the only place I could think of to go,” Dex said. “Fisk kidnapped me out of the prison. He has no use for me anymore. One of the inmates bargained for me. I wasn’t going to let him rape and kill me.”

Karen’s irises darkened to the colour of a stormy ocean, and she dug inside her handbag, to show Dex the handle of her gun.

“I have killed before. If this is a trick on Matt-“

Dex shook his head. “Everything I said is true. The prison is forfeit. Fisk has turned too many.”

“The man you were working for.”

“The man who set me up to be sexually assaulted!” Dex bristled. “The man who killed a good friend of mine.”

Karen shook her head. “Matt thinks you’re willing to change, but I don’t buy it. Psychopaths are good at mimicking human emotion.”

“I am not a psychopath!” Dex shouted, clenching his fists and willing himself to not succumb to the sudden urge to pick up an empty coffee cup from the nearby coffee table and smash it against the wall.

“Then what are you?” Karen asked. “What kind of person shoots innocent people?”

“I was … misled by Fisk,” Dex found he could no longer look into her anguished blue irises, instead directing his attention to the varnished floorboards.

 “No, you did it. Not Fisk, _you_.”

Matt had said the exact same words.

Guilt clawed deep into his chest and punctured his heart. He clutched at his sternum, the rise and fall of his ribcage too laboured under his hand.

“You’re right,” he mumbled. “I don’t want to accept I’m a terrible person.”

“What do you want from us? Pity? Sympathy? When Matt told me you had been raped in prison, my first reaction was to…” Dex glanced up in time to notice the tears splashing down her cheeks. “Was to think _good_. You deserved it. And I _hate_ myself for thinking that. And then Matt wanted me to look into the man who molested you as a teenager. I said to myself I’d do it for Matt. I don’t want to be that person.” She took a tissue from her purse and wiped her nose and eyes. “You hurt a lot of people. Destroyed people’s lives. They will never get over what you did to them. Do you understand? I still have nightmares about that day in the church, what I could have done differently.”

Her anguish collided into him with the force of one of Matt’s kicks, the guilt and shame clawing at him now shredding his interior to raw, bloody shreds.

“I never thought of myself as _that_ man,” Dex could not bring himself to talk above a whisper “In the FBI, in the army, it felt good to know I was helping people. Things got so out of control, but I became this other person… this monster…”

“Karen, you alright?” Foggy said, stepping out of the hall back into the lounge room.

Karen’s pale visage was now splotched with red.

“I needed to say it. Needed to tell you what you did to me, to this city,” Karen’s voice trembled.

“I can’t take back what I did,” Dex said. “I can’t take away the pain I caused.”

“Well, trying to make amends is a start, if it’s true that is,” Karen said, moving to stand next to Foggy.

Matt walked over to Dex and placed a warm, needed hand on his shoulder. Karen’s eyes tracked the movement and her delicate features first twisted with anger, before crumpling.

“On the news, they’re saying both Dex and Fisk are dead,” Foggy said.  “We need to establish if this has been legally verified. Also, Dex can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous.”

“Hold on, we’re not actually entertaining the idea of not handing him back to the police? He’s an escaped prisoner!” Karen said.

Dex was rocked by a revelation. Matt had keen insight into his friends, only he had them the other way around. Karen was the one determined to hand him in, while Foggy was more open to compromise.

“We promised to protect him,” Foggy said. “Unfortunately, we don’t know how far this goes, who Fisk has with him. We do know Vanessa has turned various politicians from her end. As soon as he enters a police station, he may be killed.”

“If he’s found with us, we’ll all be arrested,” Karen said.

Matt patted Dex’s shoulder and stepped forward, biting his bottom lip. “I have an idea as to where he can go.”

*

The little-known entrance was covered in vines. When Matt had revealed his idea, Karen had protested. For the first time, Dex was in agreeance.

“Matt, this isn’t a good idea.”

“Well, right now we don’t have any other choice,” Matt said, tearing the vines apart with his hands and locating a tiny wooden handle. “I used to sneak in and out using this entrance as a kid. Mind your head.”

With his intestines in intricate knots, Dex lowered his head and stepped in, finding himself in a small storage space. Matt signalled for him to keep moving. They skirted around the labyrinth of dusty tables, chairs and stacked boxes, to another darkened corridor.

“One time, Sister Maggie caught me sneaking in,” Matt whispered, as they continued down the dank corridor, the bricked walls illuminated by bracketed lights. “I pretended to be sleepwalking. She didn’t believe me for a second.”

They reached a t-intersection and turned left.

“I used to sleepwalk,’ Dex said. “One time I woke up in the middle of the road-“

A woman in a nun’s habit came out a side room, gasping at their presence.

“Please find Sister Maggie, tell her Lester Leonard is here for refuge,” Matt ordered.

The nun nodded and hurried down the corridor.

“Matt…” Dex grasped his bicep. “I’m uncomfortable with this. This isn’t right.”

“Seems a common refrain in our relationship,” Matt murmured.

A door opened further ahead down the gloomy walkway and Sister Maggie stepped out, nodding at them and gesturing for them to come inside. Dex took a deep breath, his intestines now caught in a painful vice. To go back to the holy place he had violated and seek refuge was counter to all that was good and just. Though he was aware Sister Maggie and Matt had spoken on the phone, surely now the nun would tell Matt as such, that Dex needed to leave, that a blasphemy was being perpetrated merely by his presence.

They followed her into what turned out to be an office lined with cabinets, which, in turn, led down another corridor to a smaller room, featuring a bed bearing a floral bedspread, chest of drawers under a cracked mirror and rickety bedside table. A smaller ensuite branched off from the left wall.

“The other nuns don’t know who you are and I intend to keep it that way,” Sister Maggie said. “While you are here, you’ll be referred to as Lester Leonard.”

“Sister…” Dex’s brow furrowed. “Why?”

Her intelligence twinkled in her dark eyes, so similar to Matt’s.

“You have committed such sins, made the greater sin by going against god’s commandment of ‘thou shalt not kill’ in his place of worship. However, my god is also one of love and forgiveness. Matt says you are repentant. That’s a start. Yes, you have committed terrible crimes, Mr. Poindexter. But I forgive you. As a human being, you are still worthy of love.”

Dex’s muscles locked, as his heart fluttered.

Worthy of love. Could this be true? All of his life, was this what the ultimate search was for? Could it be that simple? For him to be loved despite his sins, or even because of his sins, would be the ultimate goal.

As his first North Star had. The only one he believed did love him, and who he loved in return, succeeded in being a better human being for, before the ravages of cancer took her from him.

Dex’s eyes burned with tears. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness. And I can’t take back what I did. But I do want to repent. I really do.” The salt water ran down his cheeks.

“Matt wishes for you to be safe. You are welcome to stay here until you are.”

Dex nodded, the tears flowing freely. He couldn’t recall the last time he had openly cried.

“This will be your room. I’m sorry but I can’t allow you into the cathedral hall. You’re welcome to explore other areas of the rectory.”

Matt’s cell phone buzzed.

“Excuse me,” he said.

Sister Maggie nodded at Dex and closed the door.

“Foggy!”

Dex walked over to the bed and sat down, as Matt paced. Foggy’s voice was reduced to a set of intonations behind Matt’s ear.

“Thanks…Yes, it’s fine. We’ll meet up later.” He hung up the cell phone and turned to Dex. “They’ve ‘identified’ two bodies, burnt beyond recognition in the prison as belonging to you and Wilson Fisk.”

“I officially don’t exist then.”

“Guess not,” Matt sat beside him.

Dex ran a hand through his hair, as he wiped the tears from his cheeks.

“Is it possible?” He asked. “Am I’m still worthy of love, despite all that I’ve done?” Another water drop blinked down his face.

Matt followed said tear with the pad of his finger.

“Of course you are.”

_Matt… North Star…_

Dex touched his fingertips to Matt’s cheek, hungry for the kiss that followed, the taste of the stubble of his neck under his lips.

“Please, please…” he begged, not even certain what he was begging for. Absolution? Love? Perhaps as simple a pleasure as a warm body undulating with his?

_Worthy of love._

This time, they undressed each other without the heated rush of their earlier coupling, discovering new aspects of each other’s body; the rough skin of Matt’s elbow, the curve of Dex’s hip. The back of Matt’s knees produced giggles from Matt’s lips, proclamations of ‘ticklish!’, whereas the soles of Dex’s feet produced the same for Matt.

Needing more, they momentarily ceased in their explorations to search for anything to be used as lube, in the tiny accompanying ensuite. In the cupboard, a leftover moisturiser would have to suffice. As they collapsed back down onto the bed in each other’s arms, Matt grabbed Dex’s hand and moved it away from his opening, to his own.

“It’s okay. I want it. I want you,” Matt urged.

Forgoing the brutal need for domination, Dex took his time, kissing and stroking Matt’s yearning torso and face, as he stretched him.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he murmured against Matt’s neck. This was a profound revelation. In the past, even when the sex with another man was consensual, whether he was bottoming or topping, there was always a rush to the main act, to the thrill of the pain combined with intense pleasure.

Matt was different, so precious and special. He deserved to be worshipped.

“I’m ready,” Matt said, sucking on his earlobe.

Entering Matt was entering soft velvet. Matt responded with a perfect shudder, his legs tightening around Dex’s waist. They moved as one, flowing as water, Dex targeting the jabs inside Matt’s warmth to press up into the spot inside him and turn his sweet breaths to whimpers.

“Is it okay?” He whispered in Matt’s ear, kissing the lobe, as he poured moisturiser onto his hand and stroked Matt’s erection in time with his movement inside him.

“Oh yes,” Matt breathed, catching Dex’s mouth with his own.

Dex groaned, thrusting faster, inside his North Star, combined as one, their tongues, their bodies, their beings as one. This was beyond all he could have imagined. With all that had happened to him; the pain and anguish of his life, of others taking without permission, here was one with whom he had given his body, his mind, his soul freely.

‘Yes, Matt,” He whispered, nuzzling his neck, the bliss overwhelming, soaring him over the edge to unfathomable heights. Matt cried out, tightening around him, as he spurted come between them.

Dex flung his head back and cried out to the ecstasy, before he panted and collapsed on top of his lover, kissing his cheek, as the blissful comedown rolled over him.

_I am worthy._

Matt cupped his chin and they locked lips before, with regret, Dex slipped out of his body.

“How are you?” Dex asked, gathering Matt’s clothes from where they’d flung them to the ground and handing them to him.

“Better than alright, “Matt said, nuzzling his neck. “What about you?”

Dex kissed down the side of his left cheekbone, relishing in the contrast of the supple skin, compared to the prickle of his jaw. “I want to know everything about you.”

“I’m assuming you already have done your research.”

Dex laughed and gave him a gentle whack on the arm.

“Tell me something you’ve never told another.”

“Hm… something I’ve never told another?” Matt pulled his underwear and pants back on, so Dex grabbed his own and followed suit.  “When I beat up others as Daredevil, others have always asked if I enjoy it. I never told them the truth.” Matt paused long enough to put on his shirt and do up the buttons. “It’s one of the greatest thrills of my life. Hurting those who hurt others give me life. Is my life. I can never tell Foggy or Karen. They wouldn’t understand. But you do. You understand.”

Dex pulled on his own shirt and grasped Matt’s hand in his own.

“Your turn,” Matt whispered.

“I don’t dislike other people,” Dex admitted. “It’s the opposite. I want to connect so bad, I just don’t know how. I always feel so separate, forever on a separate island. Even with the ones who mistreated me, raped me, at least that was a form of closeness, of connection…I’m so incredibly messed up…”

Matt’s yielding mouth brushed against his, before he rested their foreheads together. Further words formed in Dex’s mind, lingering on his tongue.

“But with you. It’s different with you.”

_I’m pretty sure I’ve fallen for you. No, not sure. Certain._

_I’m in love with you._

_I never considered it could be possible._

“We’re all messed up. Some of us more than others,” Matt said, hand soothing on the back of his neck. “We _all_ feel separate from others.”

“I want to be good. Do good. For you.”

“Don’t do it for me. Do it for you,” Matt said.

*

The photo displayed on the cell showed a smiling bald man holding a baby.

“My husband,” the blonde woman’s tear streaked face came into focus behind the shaking hand. “That night, I kept calling and calling. On this phone. How could you do this to us? You ruined my life!” The slap stung Dex’s cheek. “You ruined us! I will never forgive you! Never!”

“Kelly,” Sister Maggie’s tone managed to be both gentle and terse.

“I’m sorry,” the woman sobbed, mascara running down her cheeks in streaks. “I thought I would be okay. I told myself I would forgive this man. I prayed all the way here that I could. But seeing him, I can’t. I’m sorry, Karen. Please take me away…”

Karen, standing to the back of the room, shot Dex a sympathetic glance, as, between her and Sister Maggie, both helped the wailing woman out of the room.

Dex walked over to his bed and collapsed onto his back. Six hours before, he had made love to Matt on this bed, had come to the shocking revelation of the intensity of the feelings for him. Now, Matt was with Foggy, using their lawyer status to work out their next move. Dex was pleased Matt had such good friends in both Foggy and Karen. However, it didn’t cease him from wishing Matt was with him, to help him sort through the conflicting emotions that pounded his brain. He had left the special cell phone Matt had given him at the prison and he had no replacement, no way of contacting his North Star.

Light rapping on the door shook him from his meanderings, and Dex sat up, to Karen standing in the entrance.

 “Is she coming back?” He asked.

“Maybe another day. This was difficult for her. But I’m glad you were open to seeing her.”

Dex understood the melancholy truth. This woman could visit him every day, all of the family members of his victims could visit every day and it would do little to lower their intense anguish. He had done this to them. Nothing he could say or do could change that fact.

Karen ventured further into the room, closing the door behind herself.

“I found Frank Keams. He’s working as a teacher in Florida. Verified it’s definitely him. It makes me sick to think of a man like that teaching! If you come forward about what he did to you, others will too. Guaranteed you won’t be his only survivor.”

Dex caught the terminology ‘survivor’ as opposed to ‘victim’. This was Karen’s way of attempting to bond with him, to show that she no longer bore such intense hatred towards him. Though he did appreciate the effort, he wasn’t sure if he could do as she suggested.

The shame of what he had endured with Frank Keams was too strong.

Dex shook his head. “I don’t know, Karen. I really don’t…”

Three knocks shook the locked door.

Karen grimaced, opened her mouth as though to say more, but then turned and opened the door, to a nun coming in.

“A man out front asked me to give you this,” she said, handing Dex a blank envelope.

“What is it?” Karen asked, as Dex turned the envelope over, to verify the other side was also blank.

Creasing his forehead, Dex opened the envelope. A piece of paper fell out, bearing the photocopy of a driver’s licence. Deakin was far better looking in life than he was in the licence. Underneath was an address of a warehouse the FBI had used, to nab half a dozen Albanians based on Fisk’s intel.

“What is it?” Karen asked, as Dex’s heart sank into his stomach at the implications of the photocopied driver’s licence.

“My physiotherapist,” he handed Karen the paper “You need to go to him. Tell him to leave, with his family. It isn’t safe.”

Karen’s lips quivered. “No, don’t go to Fisk. It’s a trap.”

“He knows I’m here. If I don’t go, he’ll come here. Please, you won’t have much time.”

Karen snapped a photo of the photocopy with her cell phone and without question did as he asked, swiftly departing the room.

“ _They really do love Matt, to be doing all of this. Because this isn’t about you,”_ Nadeem said.

Dex nodded. Of course it wasn’t about him. It was best it stayed that way.

“It’s what Matt deserves.”

*

The muscles of the man tied to a seat in the centre of the warehouse had turned to fat, in the twenty years since Dex had last been acquainted with him, his once shock of strawberry blond hair receding to a deep widow’s peak.  

“I’m here! Come out or kill me!” Dex said, his feet echoing along the concrete floor, as he stepped closer to the struggling man.

Footsteps sounded through the long rows of shelving to his right. Fisk skirted around the forklift, dragging another with him.

“Glad you could make it,” Fisk said, throwing the body he had been dragging, to land at Dex’s feet.

Judging by the level of decomposition, Hasani had been dead for at least two days. The bullet hole in his forehead revealing the method of demise.

“A present for you, Dex.” On closer inspection, Dex noted that Fisk’s head and white suit was covered in blood.

“You’ve had a busy afternoon,” Dex said.

“I was never going to allow him to touch you. The moment we were at the safehouse, I was going to allow you free range to do as you wished with him.”

“You mean as you did with the other men who succeeded in raping me in the prison?” Dex managed to keep his laconic tone, despite the rage sweeping his system.

Fisk flinched. “That was a mistake.”

“So you keep saying.”

“It’s true, Dex,” Fisk sauntered forward. “Hasani was always going to end with a bullet in the forehead, whether from me or you.”

Dex laughed. “You’re not even trying any more. Disappointing.”

“This insidious man,” Fisk pointed at his now shivering tied up prisoner. “Frank Keams. Yes, he molested you. Raped you. Now you can have your vengeance. Do with him as you wish.”

Dex longed to do as Fisk asked. Perhaps, if this man hadn’t have touched him that fateful night, his life could have been different. No manipulation from Fisk, no death of innocent people.

But also, perhaps not. Perhaps he was always on the path he was on now. What would one more death do?

“I won’t kill for you,” he said.

“Do it for you. Come on, Dex. This little dalliance with Matt Murdock (Dex stiffened) isn’t going anywhere. You want to be with me. You _deserve_ to be with me.”

“Leave Deakin alone,” Dex ordered.

“I wanted to get your attention. It worked.”

_Just like he got you attention by murdering Julie, the sick bastard._

“Admit it, Dex. The office, the church. For the first time, you were alive.”

Now, it was Dex’s turn to flinch.

“No, it was wrong. It didn’t give me structure or support. It took it away from me! I don’t need you, Fisk.”

Fisk roared, pulled out a revolver and shot Frank Keams in the temple, before holding the weapon on Dex. Dex stood, waited. If this was to be his end, so be it.

_If there’s an afterlife, where I’m going, I’ll be seeing you, Fisk._

Fisk tilted the weapon to the side and the bullet ricocheted off shelving behind Dex.

“I’m leaving. Kill me if you have to,” Dex turned and made his way back towards the exit, body tense, ready for the bullet to enter his brain or back, for the sating void of death.

However, he reached the exit, one hundred feet away, without incident.

*

“The whole family got out. Deakin says he has a brother in Idaho. They’re going to stay two weeks with him. I said we’ll let him know when it’s safe to come back,” Karen said.

Dex’s exhale whistled through his lips. “Thank you, Karen.”

Behind her, Foggy continued to pace and speak on his cell phone.

“Yes, thanks.” He crossed the dim floor of the crypt to stand before Dex and his two friends. “The two bodies in the warehouse were verified as Frank Keams and Hasani Shehu. DNA was found on both bodies.”

“It will match to Fisk but they may suppress it. If they are going as far as to fake Fisk’s death, this will not be a problem,” Matt said, adjusting his tie.

“They shouldn’t find any DNA of myself,” Dex said. “I made sure to wipe the handle to and from entering the place, didn’t touch anything. Unless they find a hair or…” He shrugged.

Karen walked over and leaned against the brick pillar, gazing at the dozens of plaques detailing the names of the bodies inside.

“When does it end? It’s like we’re caught in a loop. Fisk is put away, Fisk manipulates, gets out and creates havoc.”

“We keep fighting him. We don’t give up,” Matt said.

Karen turned to face him, eyes bright with tears. “Of course, that’s all we can do.”

*

As soon as they entered the bedroom, Matt gripped Dex by the shoulders and drew him in to a soothing kiss.

“You didn’t kill Frank Keams.”

“What would be the point?” Dex said. “That would be giving Fisk what he wants.”

“And what if Fisk wasn’t there? What if it was just you and Keams?”

Dex had already considered this notion. A man who manipulates those with less power, whose form of sexual assault has the victim believing for years that they were complicit. Had he been the one to track down Keams, knowing what he had done, that there would be other victims, what would he do?

What would Matt do?

Of course, Matt wouldn’t kill him. Matt would place his faith in the law that had failed him so often. Matt had never killed, nor would Dex ever want him to. To take that step, the step he had already taken as a child, was to plunge over a threshold one could never step back from.

“You would, wouldn’t you?” Matt said.

“For years, I blamed myself for what he did to me. I hated him but I kept going back. He made me feel needed, special. All my life, I’ve had this thing where I can love a person so much, obsess over them. The moment they do something I disagree with, I turn so viciously. I don’t want that to happen with you. Can’t allow that to happen with you.”

“It’s okay…” Matt kissed his cheeks, his nose, his chin. “It’s okay.”

They stumbled back onto the bed, lips locked, arms and legs entangled, pawing at flesh as clothes were discarded, before lips tasted flesh, hands caressed.

“I want you,” Dex said, opening the moisturiser, scooping it in his hand and jamming three fingers inside himself. “I want it fast, hard.”

“Let’s slow down,” Matt grinned, kissing his neck, as he poured moisturiser onto his own hand and stroked Dex’s erection.

“It’s okay!” Dex withdrew his fingers and hooked his arm around Matt’s back, forcing his body down onto his. “Fuck me, please!”

Matt scooped more of the cream onto his fingers and gingerly entered one into his body.

“You’re not ready. If I go now it will hurt.”

“I can take it.”

Make shushed him with a mouth on his, taking the time to enter more fingers into him, to stretch and prepare. As the pleasure rose, so did the pounding of his heart. No, he wasn’t sure if he wanted it this calm, this slow, as though they were making love.

_Just fuck me, Matt. It’s fine._

When Matt did enter him, it was again with such slow precision.

“You tell me if you need me to stop,” Matt whispered into his ear.

No one had ever asked him that. No man had ever stopped, not even when he had begged, fought, screamed. Instead, they had laughed at his cries of pain, had told him he wanted it, wanted them.

Matt stared to thrust, spiraling intense pleasure around his system. He cried out. Yes, it was good, so good. But it wasn’t right.

“No, I want it harder!” Dex begged.

“It’s okay…” Matt said.

Dex grabbed his hand and shoved it over his mouth. Matt instantly removed the hand.

“Please, I want it hard. Rape me, Matt!”

Matt was off him so fast it was as though he’d been flung off the bed and across the carpet by an invisible force. His pallor was the colour of sour milk, his chest heaving, eyes dark and lustrous.

_Why did you say that? What’s wrong with you?_

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”

“The other time we…” The shaking of Matt’s voice matched Dex’s hands.

“No, I wanted it. Wanted you! I didn’t mean literally rape me. Of course, I wouldn’t want that! I just wanted-“

“You want to punish yourself,” Matt pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I’m fucked up,” Dex sobbed. Great, jut great. This was just what he needed.

“And you made me the conduit,” Matt sighed.

“I don’t know why I keep doing this,” the tears continued to flow, unabated. “My life is so messed up right now, and you are one of the few good things in it and even then, I screw everything up! I can’t get anything right.”

Matt came back beside him and took his hand, rubbing his fingers over the trembling flesh. “Well, you’re not alone in the constantly screwing up your life department. Dex, I want you to answer honestly. Did you want to be intimate with me?”

Dex bought the hand holding his up to his lips. “Yes. But, as always, a part of me decided I didn’t deserve you. Needed for you to be brutal, to treat me like a monster.”

Matt sighed. “The other day, when you were the one topping, you made sure I was comfortable.”

“That was different. I didn’t want to hurt you!”

“You insisting I so-called ‘rape’ you is hurting me, do you understand? You’re trying to turn me into a monster!”

“No, that’s not what I want at all!”

“I understand we’re not the most functional of partners but please. Please stop doing this!” His dark irises glowed with such depth that Dex wanted to climb inside and fall down, to cocoon into his partner’s warm and safe interior.

“I do want us to be functional. I want you. You’re so beautiful to me,” Dex said, trailing a hand down his bristled jaw.

“I sense others' reactions upon looking at you,” Matt said, his tone lower, huskier. “The increased heartrate, the sweat, the whispers of how handsome you are.”

Dex lifted his hand and kissed it once more.

“I want it to be as slow and careful as when I was topping, I really do. It’s just that my mind is so fucked up.”

“I want you to be comfortable, Dex. More than comfortable. When we’re intimate, I’m more than aware of your sexually abusive past. I don’t want to hurt you. I need you to tell me the moment you feel even the least amount of discomfort, or fear, okay? You need to tell me what you want.”

Dex lay down on the bed, pulling Matt onto him, as he grabbed his erection.

“We can go again. Slower this time.”

“How about we try something different?” Matt asked. “Want me to go down on you?”

Dex’s breath shuddered and he nodded. Matt slid down his body, kissing as he went, nuzzling the hair of his chest, sucking on his left nipple, lightly nipping the flesh to the right of his belly button. When he reached his erection, he looked up.

“You tell me if you need me to stop.”

With that said, he engulfed Dex’s erection, mouth so warm and wet and damn it, no Dex didn’t want him to stop. It was good, so good. He grabbed Matt’s hair, not tight enough to hurt, but enough to urge him to move his head faster up and down, which Matt complied to. Frank had gone down on him too-

No this wasn’t his abuser. This was Matt, the sole male North Star who didn’t want to hurt him, who explicitly said he’d stop if he asked-

“Stop,” Dex said.

Matt moved his head up, away from his erection, forehead crinkled in expectant expression.

“I didn’t actually want you to stop,” Dex grinned. “I just wanted to test you. Please, keep going.”

“I told you. You want me to stop, I stop.”

“Well, you can start again now.”

Matt smirked and lowered his head back down. Dex again gripped Matt’s hair as his head bobbed up and down, giving in to the pleasure, allowing himself to let go, shooing Frank from his mind. This was Matt, who he cared for ( _loved_ ) who he wanted to be with, yearned to be with. The orgasm hit, hard, enough to release a cry from his lips. Matt eagerly sucked, swallowing his come, before kissing his now limp penis and climbing up his body. Dex grinned at him, tugging at his erection.

“You sure?” Matt asked.

“Oh, I’m sure,” Dex said, stroking, delighting in the flush of Matt’s face, the sweat droplet curving down his forehead.

Matt bit down his shoulder as he came, his semen shooting onto Dex’s stomach.

“Now that was nice,” Dex said, pecking Matt on the lips. “Thank you for putting up with me.”

“Well, you put up with me,” Matt grinned at him.

“Of course, I ( _I’m in love with_ ) want you. Need to be with you.”

“I never thought I’d say this but agreed. This goes both ways.”

Butterflies fluttered around in his stomach and Dex pulled him into a warm kiss.

*

As they strolled down the corridor, Dex playfully whacked Matt on the ass. In return, Matt laughed and elbowed his side. Sister Maggie, coming up the other end, shot them a suspicious glance.

“You two are in a good mood.”

 _“She knows,”_ Nadeem said _. “You guys aren’t exactly being subtle.”_

“Wrong,” Matt said. “I am in a fantastic mood.”

As with everything in his life, the mood abruptly turned sour, when the stained-glass window high above them smashed. Sister Maggie screamed and jumped back, as Dex and Matt jumped back on the other side. The body landed on the floor before them, Max’s sightless eyes staring up, his police shirt bloodied.

Screams sounded from down the other end of the corridor, followed by a voice.

“Benjamin Poindexter. You have five minutes to show yourself or we will kill these three lovely nuns.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all who are reading! :)  
> Hoping to finish this up in a couple of chapters.

The blight of Wilson Fisk extended its sacrilegious grip over the sanctity of the place of worship once more. Volcanic fury flowed as lava through Dex’s veins. He had been the weapon from Fisk’s grip, with the blood spilling not only on others but on himself, yet missing Fisk.

_No more. He won’t touch these people._

Matt’s distorted voice seeped through the distracting booming pump of blood through Dex’s brain.

“You need to get the others out!” Matt yelled at Sister Maggie.

Dex’s leg muscles pumped, his brain telling him to move, to get to where the innocent were being held.

“Dex!” Matt called out.

As Dex sprinted to the area in which Matt had intuited the voice had originated, the irony of the situation was not lost on him. A year before, he had been the one issuing demands, in the same church.

_Damn you, Fisk!_

Reaching the stairs leading down to the catacombs, he sprinted down two then three at a time, risking twisting his ankle, or worse but he didn’t care. He had to get to the captured nuns.

 _“You are no saviour,”_ Fisk’s voice whispered. _“Even if you save all of them without bloodshed, it won’t be enough for your repentance. It will never be enough.”_

_It doesn’t matter. This is wrong. Hurting these people is wrong. I understand that now._

Tearing two crucifixes off the nearby wall, he rushed to the bottom of the staircase and opened the ensuing door, taking a quick inventory of the room. The three nuns were being held in the south corner. Thirty men with automatic weapons filled the space. Fisk was clearly going for quantity, perhaps as a mark of respect for his abilities.

With careful aim, he lobbed the crucifixes and took out two men by slamming the items into the sides of their heads. As the third and fourth men were knocked out by the continued spinning objects, the weapons fired at him. He slammed the door shut, just before the bullets penetrated. Taking a deep breath, he pushed it open again and stepped out.

“I’m here!”

For a moment, no one moved, stunned at his bold move. His senses were not as refined as Matt’s but he intuited the man to his left place his hand on the trigger. Before he could fire, he kicked the weapon out of his hand, and threw the body at the other four men behind him, knocking them down, before diving behind the concrete pillar, as more bullets hit. The door slammed open, followed by the noises of grunts, slaps and punches.

Matt Murdock had entered the fray.

Though Dex was confident of his North Star’s abilities, his abdominal muscles clenched at the premise of Matt being marked by one of their weapons. Roaring, Dex stood and, taking what he could from the area around him, threw stones and rubble at the ones attempting to fire Matt, managing to drive them back, as daredevil ploughed through them.

Two of the nuns were running from the room, through the south door. The third however, was screaming and being dragged in a different direction, the man tearing at the material of her clothes. The magma contracting through his pulses drew the blood to his face, flushing the flesh deep purple and his larynx vibrated in a guttural scream.

_No! Not here. He won’t do that here!_

Though Dex himself, had suffered from sexual assault, he was not a messenger of god, was not held in high regard.

But this nun, this woman who worked for others, who represented the best of humanity, for this man to even consider degrading her as he had been…

_How dare he touch her!_

Pummelling through two more attackers with kicks, flips and punches, he tore the weapon off one, breaking his nose with the butt, before slamming it into his jaw to fracture that too, and rushed forward, to where the man was forcing the woman out of the room.

In his mind, he saw his beloved first North Star, emaciated, in her weakened state barely able to say the words that were always of such comfort to him. In that time, he had already been violated by Frank Keems, but couldn’t tell her, needed her to view him as capable. Strong.

_This nun isn’t the first this man is willing to ruin the life of. She won’t be the last._

He aimed the weapon and exploded the man’s head. The woman screamed as she was showered with blood.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry! Are you okay?” Dex asked.

Not answering, she ran down the ensuing hall, holding her tattered clothes to her body.

Dex turned back, with the weapon, to the melee going on in the catacombs. These men, who attempt to rape and murder in a house of god! The institution Matt placed such a high distinction in.

_I won't allow this to happen._

Daredevil had individually taken out most of the men, who lay groaning or unconscious on the ground and was currently taking on three men at once. A fourth aimed at Dex as he re-entered the catacombs, and he ducked behind the tombstone in the centre, as the bullets flicked dust down onto him. More machine gun fire sounded, followed by a sharp cry. Dex risked placing his head up and his heart paused in his chest, before thumping triple time.

Matt lay on the dusty floor, blood seeping down his upper chest.

Dex roared, in his blind fury, not even bothering to protect himself, as he stood and aimed at the four remaining standing men, taking them out with a burst of gunfire to their heads, before they could return fire. He then ran to Matt’s side, examining the wound.

“You killed them!” Matt said.

“Shoulder. In the shoulder." Relieved, Dex dropped his head onto the other side of Matt’s chest. Not a fatal wound, if it was seen to quick enough.

‘You need to go,” Matt said, as sirens whirred in the distance. “They can’t find you here.”

“Oh my god!” Sister Maggie’s voice sounded in the entrance of the doorway in which he and Matt had entered.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry for all of this,” Dex said, taking Matts’ bloody hand in his own.

She stepped down the stairs, mindful of the men littering the floor, as she lifted Dex up by his shoulders. “Matt’s right. You need to leave. They can’t find you here.”

Dex looked back to Matt, torn between the logical decision to leave and the emotional decision to stay.

“Go! I’ll make sure Matt goes to the hospital!” Maggie said.

Dex knelt before him and kissed his forehead, before standing and sprinting through the door, up the stairs and then through the corridors, to the door Matt had taken him in, when Matt had joked about sneaking in as a child.

_Please, please let him be okay._

Dex wasn’t sure who he was talking to. Matt’s God? Would he listen to a man who had spilled blood in his house of worship for a second time?

 _“This was different,”_ Nadeem padded alongside him _. “They were trying to kill you, would have killed the nuns. Shot Matt.”_

Technically, phantom Nadeem was right. He could argue self-defence but the truth was he enjoyed killing those men. Not the act of killing, itself, but the concept of righting a wrong. Hurting those who wished to hurt others.

As Matt had said, in his confession, it felt right. Powerful.

Stepping out into the back grounds he considered how ridiculous this all was. He was bloodied and bruised. Any search dog or even curious officer would discover him-

A vehicle cruised slowly around the edge of the back fence, the tinted window rolling down. Dex looked around himself, for a place to hide but it was useless. He had been seen.

Zablowski peered out at him.

“Get in!” He ordered. “please.”

The police cars pulled up at the front of the church in a squeal of tires and roar of sirens. Scooting up over the fence, Dex dropped and, deciding to take his chances with Zablowski, climbed into the car. Zablowski slammed the door shut and the vehicle pulled away from the sidewalk. A woman sat beside the prison officer, fiftyish, with short black hair and piercing grey eyes.

“What’s going on? Who are you?” He asked the woman.

“I’m here to offer you a job.”

Dex blinked. “What?” He was certain she had just said she was going to offer him a job. It had been a traumatic day, with murders and attempted rape and his beloved Matt being shot. Now his brain was hallucinating.

“Benjamin Poindexter. Crack shot in the FBI as well as army. The best kill rate of any sniper.”

“I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention but I also killed innocents. It made the news. I served prison time,” he said.

“We’ve been keeping an eye on you, waiting for the right chance to talk to you,” the woman said. “Yes, we know of your past, the tapes, the psych who died of cancer.”

Dex stiffened.

“Who the hell-?”

“You not only work well with a strong structure, you exceed all expectations. You had that in the FBI. Wilson Fisk took you off the rails. It would be our pleasure to put you back on. Give you the structure you need. You will have a psychiatrist. Be back on the medications you need. In return, you work for us.”

“What are you? NSA? CIA? Ah…”

“Technically CIA but no… we’re more a Black Ops unit. On paper you’ll be a technical analyst for us, researching the bad guys; terrorists, mass murderers, serial killers. The difference is you will take them out. No more bad guys.”

Dex’s thoughts went to Matt, his decision to not kill any more. Though, he supposed that didn’t matter now. He’d slaughtered five men in the church. Bad men, one could argue, but the fact remained he was still the direct cause of their demise.

“ _These people are offering you a chance at a life again,”_ Nadeem said, seated beside him.

“I’ve been trying to be good. I don’t want to kill any more.”

“Dex,” now Zablowski spoke. “These people aren’t innocent. Taking out these people will protect others, will save others from hurt.”

_“It’s one of the greatest thrills of my life. Hurting those who hurt others give me life. Is my life,” the pink of Matt’s cheeks, the lustrous dark eyes._

_So beautiful in that moment._

“You were working for the CIA the entire time I knew you?” Dex asked Zablowski.

“You’ll of course have to change your identity,” the woman ignored Dex’s question.

“I’ve been going by the name Lester Leonard.”

“That works for us,” she said. “The good news is the main office is here in New York, so you won’t even have to leave the city.”

To have a job. Security. To rebuild his life, away from the influence of Fisk.

“Do I have time to think about it?”

“We haven’t offered you the job yet,” the woman handed him a piece of paper. “First, we need an audition, of sorts.”

Dex glanced down at the paper, to a grinning man, with a shaved head bearing a swastika over his frontal lobe, staring back at him. He didn’t need to read the name to recognise the man. When he was in the FBI, with the help of the MI-5, they had attempted to track down this man for months. He had been linked to a terrorist attack in London the year before, in which a bomb exploded in a mosque, killing over a hundred worshippers. A second bomb then killed five first responders.

“He’s in New York right now, frequents a bagel store at the corner of fifteenth and third most mornings. The MI-5 are in agreeance with us. He needs to be found and taken out.”

“Thirty-five children died in that attack,” Nadeem had said, when they were going through the evidence of the crime. “We’d need to get this asshole.”

The vehicle petered down to a smooth stop. “From now on, when we refer to you, we’d prefer to go by a new moniker. Bullseye would be apt, don’t you think?” The woman asked.

“I’ll consider your proposal,” Dex said.

“Sure,” He could perceive in the woman’s eyes his answer.

Opening the vehicle door, he stumbled onto the footpath, up the entrance leading to Matt’s apartment.

_How did they know to come here?_

Letting himself in, he went straight to the shower to wash the blood off himself, as he considered his options. Matt would tell him not to take the job.  Or would he? He could take it and not tell him-

No, he refused keep any secrets from Matt.

But, to kill again…the vow he had made.

This was different, he argued to himself as his mind returned to the earlier fight, the man who had wanted to rape one of the nuns. Did any of them deserve to live? Who was he to make that decision?

 _“This isn’t the same as when you were manipulated by Fisk,”_ Nadeem said. _“You won’t be assassinating innocents here. The neo-nazi scum we were investigating killed thirty-five children!”_

He came out of the shower, and dried himself, throwing on clothes, to a knock on the front door. Walking over from the bathroom, he crossed the lounge and opened it, to Foggy on the other side.

“I won’t stay. I figured you’d be here,” Foggy said, stepping in. “Matt’s in surgery right now. Bullet hit his left shoulder, fractured his clavicle.”

Foggy and Matt had both saved his life, specifically from death row. Was it hypocritical to now go back to a job in which he killed others?

“Oh, thank you so much for telling me…”

“This whole thing is so messed up…” Foggy ran a hand through his hair. “No one is admitting you were there, of course. The story is the Albanians came for Matt.”

“This is all my fault,” Dex said.

“Five of the men were killed. That was you, wasn’t it?” Foggy asked.

Dex saw no benefit in lying.

“One of them was going to rape a nun.”

“Life or death situation,” Foggy’s grin became a grimace.

“I know you don’t believe in killing, in any circumstance.”

Foggy bit his lip, the grooves deepening in his forehead.

“When it comes to another trying to kill Matt or even Karen, or Marcy, my girlfriend, my morals tend to go a bit wonky.”

“What if it was a terrorist?” Dex implored. “Someone known for killing hundreds of others? What if you had the chance to stop them?”

Foggy raised a brow. “I don’t know. Maybe, if I knew for certain they were going to kill again…Life is complex. We try and work the law as best we can. But it’s difficult, yes.”

“If you hate me for killing those five men…” Dex wasn’t aware of how much the opinions of Matt’s friends mattered to him, until that moment.

Foggy favoured him with a sympathetic expression.

“I don’t hate you, Dex. It was an intense situation. And they were trying to kill you, to kill nuns and kill Matt. Matt is injured but is going to be okay. The nuns are shaken but okay and you’re okay. I’ll count that as a win.”

_A win. Yes, people can die and the day can still be seen as a win._

_As it was in the FBI, or military._

*

That night, after hours of tossing and turning in his sleep, he made his decision.

*

The man had covered his swastika with a hood but his bearing and physique was instantly recognisable, to Dex who, with  Nadeem, had studied him for hours. There was no denying this was the one he wanted.

Following, with his own puffy heavy hooded coat an effective disguise, Dex watched him buy the bagel, and continue down the street. He knew, from surveilling him the past two days, he would then turn a corner, to a street which, that time of the morning, was relatively low in traffic and people.

Dex waited until he turned the corner, picked up the rock from the ground, aimed and threw. The rock lodged into the back of the man’s head with such force it went three centimetres into his brain before stopping. The man dropped and Dex continued on his way.

*

Dex lit the candle, when the noise of the door opening hurried him across the room, to a weary Matt coming into the door way.

“How are you feeling?” Dex asked, leaning forward to kiss his dry lips.

“I’m okay. Need to rest up for two weeks…”

“I can help you with that,” Dex grinned, loping an arm around his waist and taking him into the dining room. “Sit down. I’ve made my coveted beef stroganoff.”

“Smells good,” Matt grinned, as Dex loped over to the kitchen and ladled the concoction from the pan into two bowls.

“Wait till you taste it.”

He returned and placed one of the bowls in front of Matt.

“Mm.. that is good,” Matt said, tasting a spoonful. “So, the nuns are shaken up but okay. Police are admitting Daredevil took out some of the men and the others shot each other. The reason the media is saying this occurred is because of copycats of you and Fisk. Detective Mahoney is finding it difficult to convince them that it is the work of Fisk.”

“Are you upset with me for killing those five Albanians?” Dex asked, moving to sit opposite him.

Matt placed his fork down. “It was an intense situation. You’re a trained sniper. They would have killed many more. No one else died. At least no innocents.”

“Yes, but it must have reminded you of-“

“That’s different,” Matt said. “This time, you killed the men with the guns.”

Dex considered confiding in Matt about the offered job but decided against it, telling himself it wasn’t the right time.

*

Matt bucked up against him, digging his teeth into Dex’s neck, the come splattering between their bodies enough to send Dex over the edge himself, grunting as he orgasmed deep inside his lover. Sighing, he rested against Matt, running his hands through his hair and indulging in his sweet mouth, as he released from his body.

“It’s good to be back,” Matt said.

*

As usual, Dex was up and making breakfast before Matt. Hence, when the folded sheet of paper was slipped under the door, he rushed to take it. With a hammering heart, he opened it. The paper bore the name Bullseye and an address of an office block in the city, a building he knew to be an insurance agency, along with a time of eight am the following morning.

By the time Matt was up an hour later and yawing, as he came into the kitchen, Dex was jumping out of his skin.

“Coffee, good,” Matt said, pouring himself a cup.

“We need to talk,” Dex said.

“What’s wrong?” Matt asked, a line appearing between his eyebrows.

Dex pulled the dining chair out, in a signal for Matt to sit. With a frown, Matt complied.

“I’ve been offered a job,” Dex said.

“A job?”

“It’s a part of a group from the CIA, a black ops group. Obviously, I’m not meant to be telling you this.”

“An assassin,” A pulse in Matt’s forehead throbbed. “Listen to me, Dex, the CIA-“

“It’s a chance for structure again. To make friends. I’ll be helping others-“

“By killing more people? Listen to what you’re saying, Dex!”

“No no it’s not like that. These are bad men. They told me. Terrorists, murderers.”

“There’s due process, Dex! That’s what the law is for. It’s like that man in the city the other day, the one linked to the neo-nazi groups-“ Matt’s eyes widened. “That was you, wasn’t it?”

“He killed a hundred and two people in a bombing in a London mosque last year, followed by five first responders,” Dex’s voice shook. “Thirty-five of them children. The FBI was trying to get him for the longest time.”

“I don’t believe this,” Matt shook his head. “I can’t believe you would go back to-“

“When I was a sniper for the army and for the FBI, I was labelled a hero! How is this different?” Dex asked. “These aren’t innocents! A part of my job will be analysing them. From that perspective, it won’t be different to the job I had with the FBI.”

“I should have guessed it would end up like this. I honestly believed you would change,” Matt smiled without humour and shook his head.

“I have changed!” Dex insisted.

“Three nights ago, you killed five men!” Man shouted, waving his hands about in his fury.

“Men who were attacking us! Who attacked a convent!”

“Yes, well you would know about that, wouldn’t you?” Matt sneered. “And now you want to kill more!”

_Okay, let’s just… let’s just both calm down._

Dex deliberately slowed down his breathing.

“You don’t kill and that’s a good thing, Matt. I would never want you to ever compromise your ideals. But I already have. I’ve already gone far past that line. Killed innocents. But if this job means I can protect people, can save lives by taking them, maybe it can be my way of making amends. This will give me the stability I need, to further my development. Please, Matt, I need you to be on my side here,” he reached across but Matt snatched his hand away.

“From the beginning, it was never… What was I thinking? You’re a mass murderer.”

“Please, Matt…” Tears slipped down Dex’s cheeks.

 “I fucked it up. Why do always fuck things up?” Matt’s voice broke.

“Please, Matt. You’re my North Star.”

“Don’t say that,” Matt said, his eyes bright with tears.

“I need you for guidance. I love you. Please, I’m in love with you.”

A sob choked from Matt’s lips, as the tears spilled. “I can’t do this, I’m sorry. You need to leave.”

“Please…” Dex said his heart shattered to a million pieces. “Please Matt…”

“I’m sorry…” Matt’s attention was focused on his coffee. “Please leave.”

Dropping his head, Dex walked to the front door and departed the apartment, uncertain of where he was going or what he was to do next.

Tbc…


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all who have been reading/commenting/sending kudos. I enjoyed writing this fic. :)

“Bullseye, radio check?” The voice sounded.

From his position on the windy roof top, settled in front of the apartment block water tank, Dex responded. “Loud and clear, Fox.”

“We go in two.”

Dex recalibrated the sightings on his rifle and waited. The plan was to use smoke bombs to force the three men hiding inside the delipidated building to flee, and then pick them off, one by one, as they ran out. All three were linked to what others saw as the ‘minor’ crimes of being major players in sex slave operations. However, their major crimes, a string of trigger-happy bank robberies across the country, in which thirty people so far had been killed, one of them a pregnant woman, were what landed them on the ‘hit list’. To Dex, ruining lives with their slavery rings equalled their crimes of murder. He would add on the list any man who visited the enslaved women. Fresh in his mind, was the time they received word back from the FBI, from when they raided the brothel. Ten of the sex workers turned out to be underage.

“Fuck these assholes,” he murmured under his breath.

Of course, Matt Murdock would argue there was due process, these men deserved to have a fair trial. He hadn’t given Matt much thought in the month since the blind man kicked him out of his apartment. Not much.... no, it wasn’t as though he followed him in the papers, reading about the ever increasingly violent Daredevil, or, rarer, saw him in his lawyer guise on the television news, bearing a now constant dour expression.

No, he didn’t think about Matt Murdock at all.

“We go!” The voice said.

The bang of the smoke bombs going off carried through the earpiece and Dex rested his finger on the rifle’s trigger. The others had the south and west entrances covered. He hoped the targets would run out his.

The door to his designated entrance crashed open and three heads appeared, below, running through the carpark in front. He aimed and fired. Aimed and fired. Aimed and fired.

“Job complete,” he spoke into the mouthpiece attached to his shirt.

*

_Always with the damned paperwork._

Even working for a covert CIA black ops unit, the team still had to go back to the office, to type up their reports on the executions. Dex saved his to the work computer and leaned back in his chair, yawning.

“Bullseye!” A hand clapped him on the back. Stiffening from the contact, he spun around, to Fox’s smiling face. It took a moment to recall his actual name. Joe. “Good work tonight. We’re thinking of getting a drink. Wanna come?”

It was on his tongue to say no. In the month since he’d started the job, the team had gone out three times, not all twelve of them at once, but in different groups of three or four. Dex had enjoyed the interactions, was fond of Joe, in particular. The overly muscled man had even invited him to his house, to meet his wife and child. So far, Dex had denied him. Too close to the memory of Nadeem, too oddly painful.

“Why not? Okay, I will,” Dex said.

Behind Joe, the blond, husky Phil was favouring him with his usual starry-eyed lust, looking away when Dex glanced back at him.

*

“So, you’re feeling calmer, more able to fit to this structure you say your life needs,” the psychiatrist, a timid man with wispy blond hair, leaned forward in his chair, tapping his pen against the pad resting in his lap.

“I do feel as though things are settling, yes. I have a routine. I’m taking my medication. I’m making friends…” Dex said.

“But there’s a but…”

Dex folded one hand within the other.

“One of the men… He’s gay and single. I’m pretty certain he’s interested in me.”

The psych didn’t reply, simply waited for him to continue.

“I like him but I’m not…” His insides twisted over themselves. “I’m not the least interested. I’m scared I’m going to… sleep with him. I don’t want to.”

“What would make you sleep with him?”

Dex shrugged. “Companionship. I was… molested… raped, as a teenager and then in the prison…gang rape, this time, and then this sexual predator…And my brain has tangled up all of the wires when it comes to intimacy.”

“Okay, we will try and untangle those wires. It’s common, once one has been raped, to have issues with intimacy.”

The memory of Matt’s features, serene in sleep, shattered his mind.

“I had someone… as in someone I deeply cared about. I consented to sleeping with him. And even then, I screwed things up. It was like I was trying to reinact my own rapes with him. It made no sense! I loved him. He was so supportive. Kept saying he didn’t want to hurt me, took it slow…” The wound of his heart, which hadn’t even begun to repair, ripped that little bit more open. ‘I don’t want to sleep with the man from work. I don’t want to sleep with anyone except…” Dex grimaced, digging his fingers into the palm of his other hand.

 “It’s clear this other person is still painful for you to talk about,” the psych said, his tone gentle.

“It doesn’t matter. He’s no longer in my life.”

In the two days after the argument with Matt, Dex had trashed the apartment they had given him for his work, had pinned a picture from the paper of Matt on the wall and used it for target practice. However, on the third day, he calmed and cleaned, took the picture off the wall, telling himself it was no use chucking temper tantrums. He had new responsibilities, so should focus on them.

“He no longer matters,” Dex said, with a defiant tone.

Only Matt did. The psych knew it. And Dex was too pained to admit he was miserable without Matt in his life.

*

“Come, sit,” Joe pulled out a chair.

Another night. Another pub. Dex was beginning to wish they were as imaginative with their choice of wind down venue, as they were with planning the ‘jobs’.

Dex sat beside him, as Joe slammed a coke on the filthy tabletop. “There you go, you boring non-drinker.” He grinned.

“Leave him alone. Not all of us are alcos, you know,” Derek, seated on the other side of Dex, grinned and took a sip of his beer.

“Rather than die of liver failure, I’ll clog my arteries with sugar and die of heart failure, thank you,” Dex said, to the roar of laughter of the group around them.

Across from him, Phil shot him another lascivious glance.

*

“God you are fucking beautiful,” Phil said, nuzzling Dex’s neck, as he pushed him closer to the bed. “And talented, and smart…” He undid the buttons of his shirt. One button two buttons three.

“You want to fuck me?” Dex asked, rubbing Phil’s crotch through the fabric of his trousers. He was already erect.

_Hopefully this means it will finish quickly._

“Hell yes, I want to fuck you raw,” Phil said, pushing him onto the bed and crawling over him, placing a finger on his cheek. “I’ve been watching you. I guess you may have noticed. The beautiful and talented newbie.”

Dex reached into the bedside drawer and pulled out the lube. “Shut up and fuck me.”

“Okay,” Phil said, undoing his trousers and pulling them, and his boxers down, frowning, as he tugged at Dex’s limp penis. “You not in the mood? I’ll put you in the mood.” He slid down the bed, placing his mouth on him, valiantly sucking. Dex gripped his hair, trying to not to make obvious comparison to Matt. Because this was mere sex, wasn’t it? They could do this and Phil would leave him alone… or not…

Phil pulled away. “You okay?”

_Let’s face it not really._

“I can’t do this. I’m sorry,” Dex sighed.

“Oh…” Phil flushed bright red. “I’m so sorry. I thought you and I…If I’ve been inappropriate…”

“No, it’s fine. It’s me. I’m sorry.”

Phil rose off the bed and rearranged his clothes. “It’s best if I go.”

_Well, fucked that up, as usual, Dex._

“I’d still like to be friends. I’m sorry for the awkwardness.”

Phil’s broad features winced. “Of course, I just… I should leave….”

*

Dex came out of the bathroom, with a towel wrapped around his waist, to find Matt in the bedroom, in his black daredevil outfit.

“Do you mind if I put on some clothes?” Dex asked.

As he took off the towel and pulled his pyjama bottoms on, Matt removed his mask.

“I guess you are aware of that embarrassing lack of seduction from the hour before?” Dex asked, pulling his pyjama top down.

“I’m glad you didn’t go through with it,” Matt said.

“So am I,” Dex sat down on the edge of the bed.

“I wanted to come earlier,” Matt said. “I’ve been watching your apartment for four days now.”

“Turned into a stalker now, have we?” Dex smirked.

“So how are things? How is your stability?”

“Why are you here, Matt?” Dex was not in the mood for idle chitchat with the man who had torn his heart asunder.

Matt’s face collapsed, aging him by ten years.

“I’m not normal,” Matt’s lips quivered.

“Yes, well you run around in a devil outfit beating up people. I’d say that’s a fair assumption.”

“I never have been.  I can’t separate the darkness from me.”

Despite the hurt Matt had caused him, Dex wasn’t going to allow Matt to talk in such a negative way about himself.

He stood and took the clammy hands in his. “But there’s light there, also.”

“People don’t understand me. Don’t get me wrong. I love Foggy and Karen. More than anything. But they can never understand Daredevil. Not entirely. Can never understand the need to hurt those who prey on others.  I said I was disgusted by the fact you killed the Albanians in the convent and with your new job, assassinating those who society deigns not worthy to live. The lawyer part of me still thinks it’s wrong. But the Daredevil part… yes, he understands. Even if I could never kill, myself.”

“And I hope you never will. Please, promise me you never will.”

Matt stared at their conjoined hands, with such concentration, for a moment Dex could believe he was physically looking at them, when the reality became clear that he was focusing inwards. “We’re both so messed up. But this past month without you…Knowing you try so hard to become a better person, inspired me to try harder myself. I’ve missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Dex admitted. “I have structure now. A good job. I’ve even made friends. But it’s not the same without you. We’re both so fucked up, it’s true. But we fit in this crazy way. Like jigsaw puzzles, our fuckedupness meshes to one nice whole.”

“Beautiful poetry there, Dex,” Matt grinned and then took a deep, shaky breath. “Screw it.”

Dex’s perplexity in regards to his reason for returning turned to delight, when Matt leaned forward and pressed their lips together, their tongues entangling.

Yes, this was passion, this was romance, he’d forgotten how sweet Matt’s mouth was, how soft, how warm.

Stumbling over to the bed, they crashed on top, before Matt sat up, his cheeks so delightfully flushed pink.

“Are you sure?” Matt asked, brushing a stray lock of hair off his forehead.

Dex nodded, handing him the lube. “Slow…”

And so Matt did, stroking and licking his body and stretching him with such slow deft movements that Dex moaned for more. Matt slid into him, and Dex was amazed at how easy it was; no pain, no burning, just pleasure. Continuing to not rush, they leisurely thrusted, taking and giving, exalting in the taste of sweat on an adam’s apple, or the goose bump of the flesh of an inner thigh, by trailing fingers. Dex was beyond thinking about his past, was only there, in the room with his North Star, loving and being loved.

Matt finished first clutching Dex to him and biting into his neck, as he came inside him. Dex groaned, giving in to the overwhelming ecstasy of his own orgasm, before allowing Matt to collapse onto his still trembling torso, to slip out of him.

“If you came here for sex, I… I’m completely fine with it,” Dex murmured stroking a hand down Matt’s sweat slicked back, as he placed his head on Dex’s chest.

“Mm… your chest hair is tickling my cheek,” Matt said, moving further up, to rest his head on his shoulder.

“Sorry for being such a manly man,” Dex said. “So, does this mean you’re going to nick off the moment I fall asleep?”

“Too tired to nick off right now and you are a very comfortable pillow,” Matt said.

*

Dex blinked his eyelids open, to Matt’s grinning face, his tender fingers stroking his cheek. The aroma of coffee filled the air.

“I did nick off to get coffee. Thankfully, you didn’t wake up.”

Dex sat up and kissed his lips.

“Morning breath,” Matt grimaced, handing him the coffee. Dex took a sip. The blend was a tad too bitter.

“So, what happens now? As in what happens with us?” Dex asked, his pulse hammering in his ears.

“I want to… try here,” Matt said. “We both have… major psychological issues, and, let’s face it, probably the worst thing for us to do is to try and be in a relationship together, especially considering our past. But the fact is…” He shrugged. “We can be majorly flawed together. Even despite everything you’ve done…killing Father Lantom… I still find a spark of light in you… a man who is capable of redemption. The job you’ve taken… I believe now it is helping you towards that goal.”

“Even if it turns me into a hired assassin,” Dex said.

“You said it was of bad people.”

“They are! Terrorists, mass murderers. Ironically, I should have been on their ‘kill list’. Maybe I was… but then they figured they could use me. We all have our own nicknames. Do you know what mine is? Bullseye.”

“Kind of tactless but it does suit you,” Matt said.

“I’m glad you came back to me,” Dex said, cupping his hand around the back of his neck. “I was fine. Could cope without you. But it was a miserable kind of coping.”

“Same with me,” Matt admitted. “Maybe it’s wrong. But I don’t care anymore.” He took a deep breath. “You told me you were in love with me. The feeling is mutual.”

A tide of overwhelming joy swept throughout Dex’s fragile being, healing the wounds created by Matt’s absence.

“You’re in love with me?” He laughed out of pure elation and pulled Matt in for a languishing kiss.

*

On the way to the job, the debate had been strong, even heated at times. Their target was an authoritarian leader from the newly formed South American country of Constaninia, which had been forged with blood. While the leader outwardly projected strength and unity, he was secretly assassinating any who went against him, from the leaders of the opposition party, to university students who organised a march against him. Joe had argued that the death of this man would create a power vacuum, which would cause even more violence. Derek had counterargued that the leader was already violent and the people deserved the chance to elect someone new, this time democratically and not through a military coup. Others had jumped in, with their take. Dex had stayed silent. His beloved Matt would find the conversation enthralling, would have his own intellectual opinion. However, in the three months since Matt had come back to him, they made a vow for Dex not to discuss his work. In terms of his own political opinion on the matter, he didn’t have one. The man had done terrible things to others and now he would die for it. That was all he needed to know.

He trailed his fingers down the FBI vest. They were ‘fake’ for the day. Still didn’t cease the invincibility the uniform always provided to him.

“ _Still doesn’t make it any more real,”_ Nadeem still graced him with the occasional visit.

In the vehicle beside him, Stan laughed.

“Lester…Your partner is rampant! The hickey only just faded from the other side of your neck and now you’ve got an even bigger one on this side!”

Dex grinned. “You should see the one on _his_ neck!”

“When are you going to invite him to see me and Mary and the kids?” Joe asked. “We’re all intrigued to meet him.”

Him and Matt had kept their relationship a secret, for obvious reasons. Dex wasn’t even certain if Matt had told his best friends, yet. Of course, as smart and close to Matt as they were, they would suspect something was happening.

Phil, across from him, focused his attention to the vehicle floor. Since the failed seduction, they had been oddly polite with each other.

“In time. At this point, we’re appreciating having some alone time.”

“A lot of alone time,” Joe grinned.

*

The cross over occurred just before the bridge. Though the real FBI agents were aware of the situation, Dex’s superiors had already informed him he would wait in the second, tinted vehicle, to make certain none of the FBI agents recognised him. As far as the world was concerned, Benjamin Poindexter was dead.

They switched vehicles, and he sat next to Phil, drumming his hands on his knees. The tension in waiting was always succeeded by the thrill of the kill, the scent of metallic blood combined with permeating death.

Phil’s breath visibly quickened, as the car pulled alongside and the door opened. The statesman, who was sweatier in person, moved into the back seat, and his bodyguard slid in beside him, bearing the most impressive curled moustache Dex had ever seen. The statesman nodded and the vehicle started. This should be easy. Take out the bodyguard and statesman.

“Have either of you been to Constaninia?” The statesman asked.

Both Dex and Phil shook their heads.

“A beautiful land, with great promise. We are a recent country, but with our reforms, we can make the country great…”

As he droned on, Dex zoned out. Another one who loved the sound of his own voice. Just like Wilson Fisk. Soon, the man would not be talking ever again. That thought gave him comfort.

“And so, why are we stopping?” The statesman asked, as the car slid to the side of the road. Correct in sensing danger, the bodyguard reached for his weapon but Dex was faster. He shot the bodyguard and then the statesman in the forehead, blood splattering the back windshield.

“Bullseye!” Joe wound down the partition between the front and back. “You were meant to allow Phil the chance to kill one of them.”

“Sorry, a little trigger happy,” Dex said, frowning down at his blood splattered clothes.

Him and Phil opened the back door and stepped around to the driver’s side, as Joe fiddled with the wiring of the ignition. The plan was to make it appear the vehicle ran off the road and into the Hudson, where the bodies would be never found, despite extensive ‘searching’.

Dex looked around himself. They had driven to a tranquil woodland area. A bird chirped.

“Here,” Phil handed him a change of shirt.

The ignition caught and Joe stepped back, slamming the car door. All three watched the car glide down the incline and into the rushing water below.

“Plans for tonight?” Joe asked.

“If you say pub, I’m all for it,” Phil said. “Bullseye?”

Dex blinked. “I can’t. I’m taking my partner out to dinner.”

*

Dex grabbed Matt as soon as he used the key to enter his apartment, dragging him into the bedroom. He wanted to fuck and be fucked, to suck and lick and come in and on each other. By Matt’s enthusiastic response, he was also willing. This time, the sex was good, with Dex taking Matt on his hands and knees, before allowing Matt to do the same in his yearning body. Dex had learned to appreciate the different forms of intimacy; from taking their time to learn aspects of each other’s body, to the need to work off the aggression of their various days. This particular form of lovemaking was rife with the potential for Dex to be triggered. Indeed, three days before, he had to stop the sex, after suffering a serious flashback to his time in prison. Matt had, as always, stopped straight away and been too kind and caring as he clung to him, enduring the corresponding numbness that always accompanied such agony.

Tonight, however, there was no flashback, only a satisfying orgasm, from both their sides, inside each other’s body.

“So, work was good today?” Dex said, as both lay on their backs, their sweat drenched chests still heaving. “That reminds me,” he rolled and kissed Matt’s chest, below his right nipple. “The travel agency on the corner of Merchant and Amstell street is a suspected front for illegal activity. Uncertain whether it’s connected with Fisk.”

His job did provide valuable benefits, namely his side project of obtaining any information for Matt and his escapades as the protector New York. So far, Fisk was in the wind, with Vanessa.

But they would be back. Both Dex and Matt were certain.

“Merchant and Amstell,” Matt sat up and pecked his lips. “Shower?”

“Mm… yes, I’d very much like to soap you up. Then, I have a surprise for you.”

“Intriguing…”

*

“Is it okay?” Dex leaned forward across the table and whispered to Matt, as the waiter moved away, their menus in hand. “Do you like it?”

He had managed to secure a table in the far corner, away from the other diners and affording them privacy. Matt reached across and squeezed his hand.

“You know the drill, let’s see how the pasta turns out.”

Dex laughed.

“Just because one time you happened to get food poisoning, in a different restaurant…I’m intrigued, Mr. Murdock with your senses you didn’t pick up that the chicken in the pasta was off.”

“I’m intrigued with your refined senses that you didn’t either,” Matt said.

“I wasn’t the one who got food poisoning,” Dex said, recalling Matt’s stroppy whining at the time, lamenting his sickness, while Dex nursed him. “You are so cute when you’re sick.”

“You mean when I vomited all over your carpet?”

The waiter approached, showing Dex the wine bottle. He nodded and the waiter poured a sample. To Dex, all wine tasted the same. He tasted and nodded, and the waiter poured both of the glasses and disappeared back through the crowd.

“To justice towards people who cause others harm,” Matt said, lifting his glass. Dex toasted his glass against Matt’s and took a sip of the wine.

“Nice pick, Dex. An aroma of wood.”

“Are you saying that to sound posh? Because it tastes like sour grapes, to me. But then,” Dex  reached across the table, lifted his hand and kissed it. “I don’t have your palate.”

Both took another sip of the wine.

“There’s a man over there whose saying your name. As in Lester,” Matt said, cocking his head.

“What? Where?”

“He’s coming over.”

Dex’s heart sank, as Joe waltzed over, with a petite blonde woman. “Lester! Fancy seeing you here!”

“Yes, fancy that,” Dex grumbled.

The smile on Matt’s face stretched from ear to ear.

“Matt Murdock,” he said, holding out his hand.

“The name is familiar… You’re not that... are you that high powered lawyer who took down Wilson Fisk a few years back? Dex, you have been holding out on us. This here is my wife, Emily.”

“Nice to meet you,” Emily shook first Matt, then Dex’s hands.

“We kept hearing about the elusive boyfriend,” Joe continued. “Glad to finally place a face to the mystery. We’re having a soiree next Saturday night. Nothing fancy.  But you’re invited. Lester knows the address.”

“Sounds delightful,” Matt said.

“Well, I’ll leave you to your dinner,” Joe said, winking at Dex’s glare. They were going to have words, when he arrived back at work.

“Well, that was awkward,” Matt said, as the two interlopers moved away. “What have you been saying about me?”

“Nothing! It’s getting harder to explain the hickeys, that’s all.”

“Me too…” Matt laughed. “Foggy and Karen suspect something…Also, I’ve been absurdly happy the past few months. They say I’ve been too upbeat, for me.”

“Really?” Dex grinned.

“I’m crazy about you,” Matt whispered.

Dex’s heart filled with such overwhelming love and adoration, he was drowning, but for the first time in his life, he welcomed the suffocation.

*

That night was another fail, when it came to their intimacy. It had started so well. Dinner had been delicious and Matt, choosing the pasta, failed to get food poisoning. After returning to Matt’s apartment, they had laughed and joked and taken the time to remove each other’s clothes, scattering them all over the floor of the lounge before continuing to the bedroom. Once inside, the rolling around the bed, kissing and frotting, had gone well. Matt had, as usual, taken care in preparing Dex. He had entered him facing each other, kissing his lips, sliding their bodies together. Dex allowed himself to cry out his passion, to revel in the scorching fire of their sweaty bodies slapping together, Matt’s slippery hand on his erection, the thick hardness in his body, pounding his sweet spot again and again.

It only took a small event, to cause him to go into catastrophe mode; a whispered voice, an unfamiliar noise or touch. This time, the trigger was a voice that sounded from outside.

“Fuck you, you fucking bitch!”

He was back in the prison cell, hands being held down by one man, while another forced himself into his unyielding body again and again, as he moaned in anguished pain.

_‘Fuck you, bitch. Take it, take it you whore.”_

“I need you to stop,” Dex said.

Matt ceased moving and gingerly pulled out. Every time Dex flashed back to his trauma, Matt always instantly complied with his wishes.

“Flashback,” Matt said, sitting up.

Dex nodded, sitting up with Matt and touching his thigh, to verify he was there, he was real. Matt existed and he existed.

“It was that voice from outside,” Dex said.

Matt’s hand, running up and down his arm, goose bumped his flesh.

“I’m sorry, I ruined this great night.”

“I’m proud of you, Dex. You’ve come so far. Further than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“I still struggle…”

“That’s called being human,” Matt said, drawing patterns on his back, as he kissed his bicep. “You’ve given yourself structure, have made friends, are taking your medications and seeing your psych.”

“I have to do all that to keep myself sane,” Dex said, placing a hand around Matt’s bare shoulders. “Most importantly of all, I’m in a stable relationship with the Daredevil of New York. Started out deranged, then was more than rusty…Then there was the time we didn’t see each other for a month…but we did make up for it with great sex.”

Matt kissed his bare bicep again.

“Thank you, Matt,” Dex said. “For putting up with me, staying with me, even despite my flaws, despite the terrible things I did in my past.”

“I love your flaws, because they’re you, Dex. What I mean is, what you’ve now become.”

Dex turned and cupped Matt’s jaw in his hands. “I won’t go back, ever to what I was before. What Fisk tried to turn me into.”

Matt covered his hands with his own.

“I am so fucking happy. I didn’t think it would be possible.”

“I think we both deserve a little happiness, don’t you?” Matt grinned.

*

In the morning, Dex awoke with a burning need to finish what he was unable to complete the night before. He shook Matt awoke, and they continued with their lovemaking.

As he groaned, kissing his lover’s neck, as he filled him, Dex let go of his fears and focused on Matt, on their connection with each other.

And it was good, it was very good indeed.

Tbc…


End file.
